Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Eugene, Oregon
Ryo Toyonaga: Awakening
October 11, 2014 to January 04, 2015 Awakening features the haunting, surreal work of Ryo Toyonaga, a New York City-based contemporary artist, in his first major museum exhibition. Organized by Lawrence Fong, the JSMA’s former curator of American and Pacific Northwest art, the exhibition surveys twenty years of ceramic and mixed-media sculpture, drawing, and painting. Toyonaga’s imagery is drawn from a wellspring of recurrent dreams, and the result is a surprisingly original world that fuses craft, technology and nature into mysterious hybrid forms and imagery. The exhibition includes nineteen medium and large-scale paintings and drawings and a companion survey of Toyonaga’s ceramic and papier-mâché sculpture. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog featuring images of the work, and essays by Fong, art historian Suzanne Ramljak, and distinguished historian, gallerist, and collector Helen Drutt English. The catalog discusses the artist’s early influences and reflections on modern and contemporary art to the evolution of his imaginative and interpretive powers. By sifting surreal notions through a variety of media, the artist discovered: “When you work with clay, you feel the world. When you draw, the tormented ‘creatures’ can stay; they are happy on canvas. One feels responsible and attached to these creatures. One wants to create a bigger world, and the ability to make large drawings enables me to create a larger world. One cannot extricate the creatures from the paintings; their chaos is frozen by the two-dimensional form. Ryo Toyonaga was born in Matsuyama, Japan. He moved to New York City in 1986 and began creating works that appeared to emerge from the earth itself, perhaps from the depths of the ocean or recesses deep in forgotten mines. During the 1990s, Toyonaga worked exclusively in clay. As the organic energy flowed and changed within his imagination, Toyonaga expanded his vocabulary of expression and materials, including the introduction of red wax in 2002 and bronze and aluminum casting in 2004. With an interest in increasing the size and stance of his works, Toyonaga began exploring large-scale papier-mâché in 2005. Following his solo show of sculpture at the Charles Cowles Gallery in 2005, his artistic interest shifted to drawing. At his second solo show at the Charles Cowles Gallery in 2009, he exclusively showed drawings. Since 2010, Toyonaga has concentrated on large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas. Support for Ryo Toyonaga: Awakening is provided by the Coeta and Donald Barker Special Exhibitions Endowment, The Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and JSMA members. - See more at: http://jsma.uoregon.edu/RYO#sthash.qI6Yt0St.dpufCATALOGUE
RYO TOYONAGA: AWAKENING
Essays by
Helen W. Drutt English, Suzanne Ramljak and Lawrence FongJordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Mindscapes: Paintings by Ryo Toyonaga
Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College New York City
The exhibition Mindscapes: Paintings by Ryo Toyonaga will be presented at the Baruch College’s Sidney Mishkin Gallery in New York City from May 9 to June 14, 2013. Featuring the artist’s most recent work, Mindscapes includes 13 large paintings and three sculptures. Cast in bronze and aluminum, the sculptures in the exhibition depict Toyonaga’s frightening yet whimsical creatures. These grotesque creatures also inhabit his paintings; they are both remarkable and almost scientific in their technical precision and attention to detail. Toyonaga’s fantastical world embodies a compelling array of creatures and cities that transports the viewer to a new place and time. From elements of Surrealism and pop culture ─ combined with influence from the late paintings of Philip Guston ─ Toyonaga invents this new terrain. Yet, he arrives at his forms by fishing them out from the opaque and teeming ocean of his subconscious. Toyonaga “sees” the images fixed in his mind before he captures them with his brush. They evolve as he works. His creatures have an affinity with Joan Miró’s biomorphic personages, and they sometimes display the raw or grotesque quality of some of Jean Dubuffet’s visceral forms. Like Dubuffet, Toyonaga rebelled against the conventions of “high art.” He says of his imagery, “They are creatures that are living in the ocean of my sub-conscience. At first, I don’t see them, but I know they will emerge.” His images capture us with their terrifying energy mitigated by a smiling playfulness. The exhibition includes a color catalog with essays by Sandra Kraskin, the curator, and James Roe. The Mishkin Gallery is located at 135 East 22nd Street at Lexington, New York City and is free and open to the public. Gallery Hours: Monday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. and Thursday, noon to 7:00 p.m. The Gallery will be closed for Memorial Day, May 25 – 27.CATALOGUE
Mindscapes: Paintings by Ryo Toyonaga
Essays by
Sandra Kraskin and James RoeSidney Mishkin Gallery Baruch College
RYO TOYONAGA: DRAWINGS 2008-2009
April 16 - May 16, 2009
Charles Cowles Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-741-8999
www.cowlesgallery.comCATALOGUE
RYO TOYONAGA: DRAWINGS 2008-2009
Essays by
Larry Kramer and Sheila FarrCharles Cowles Gallery
RYO TOYONAGA: MEPHISTOPHELEAN
Location: 167 East 73rd Street, New York City
Dates: Wednesday, March 18 – Friday, May 15, 2009
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm, and by appointment
Synopsis - Between 1995 and 2003, Japanese-born artist Ryo Toyonaga produced some 300 ceramic-based objects in his “Redkill Studio,” a secluded cabin in the Catskill Mountains. These works were not intended for sale or exhibition, but were driven by an energy welling up from the dark field of his subconscious, urging him to work. The exhibition at the Vilcek Foundation will feature 18 works chronologically chosen, focusing on Toyonaga’s ceramic-based object between 1991—the year he began creating sculptures in earnest—and 2003, when he closed Redkill Studio.
RYO TOYONAGA: Organic Stoneware LongHouse Reserve East Hampton, NY
http://www.longhouse.org/exhibitions.ihtml?id=32May 1 - October 9, 2010
The work of Japanese-born sculptor, Ryo Toyonaga, evolves from within, emerging from the depths of the earth and the depths of his soul. By creating unique forms unlike anything the viewer experienced before, the artist hopes to acknowledge the inherent friction between man and nature “and feed that conflict.” Much of Toyonaga’s work morphs from a clay base. By attaching appendages to the extremities of the core, he creates nebulous forms which reflect his intent to tantalize, provoke, and awaken the subconscious; representing the creatures that lie in wait within.
RYO TOYONAGA: Sculptures in Clay, Metal and Mixed Media
May 25-June24, 2006Charles Cowles Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-741-8999
www.cowlesgallery.comCATALOGUE
Essays by
Alexandra Munroe and Edward Leffingwell