There are thousands upon thousands of types of mold out there. Some you can eat—think the rind on a wheel of brie or a gray fungus known as “noble rot” that gives certain types of grapes an extra sweet flavor for dessert wines. But there are plenty we shouldn’t eat, and when that loaf of bread in the cupboard begins to turn blue-green, it’s definitely time to chuck it in the bin. For Kathleen Ryan, the myriad colors and textures of mold continue to inspire larger-than-life sculptures of fruit and other foods that, in a way, preserve decay.
Ryan’s oversized works are characterized by their textural finishes, often using salvaged metal and other materials in addition to an array of colored beads and semiprecious stones to achieve the effects of layered fungi and rot. Recent works such as “Bad Lemon (Slice of Paradise)” and “Screwdriver” nod to the realm of cocktails and, by extension, the notion of luxury and even vacations—concepts that somewhat sour within the context of an increasingly vulnerable economy.
Juxtaposing stones ranging from amethyst and azurite to turquoise and tourmaline with salvaged metal from vintage cars, Ryan’s sculptures evoke an array of associations. She has previously likened their over-the-top scale to the roadside attractions tourists might see along Interstate highways, such as giant doughnuts and other foods and animals.
Like a geode that doesn’t look like much from the outside, works like “Bad Lemon (Slice of Paradise)” have two very different personalities, where the metal exterior lets on little about what’s inside. Ryan taps into our appreciation of hidden beauty when opening up an ancient, crystallized stone while simultaneously suggesting the grotesqueness of opening a peach, for example, only to find it rotten inside.
Some of the works seen here were recently on view at Karma in New York, and you can find more on Ryan’s Instagram.
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