Q + A with Ryan Weiss

I’m REALLY excited to share this interview with Ryan Weiss. I saw one of his paintings at Biddle Gallery and immediately Googled him on the car ride home. When he answered my email, I think every sentence was an exclamation. He’s so genuinely happy about making art and creating things that it’s hard not to catch his enthusiasm.

"Phonographic Man", the painting I saw at Biddle Gallery

Ryan is an illustrator and painter who graduated from the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids. His work often juxtaposes vibrant candy colors against the muted tones of found wood and other industrial surfaces. The scenes he sets are surreal, and he mixes all these wonderful contrasting textures. 

"The Nuge", acrylic, collage, marker, pencil on masonite

Ryan will be painting live on May 30th at the A/V Kids Experiment, which he talks more about in his interview. Click below to read the whole conversation and to see more of Ryan’s art.

A previous show of your work was titled “Dreaming Through Reincarnation”. If you were reincarnated as an inanimate object, what would you want it to be?

I think about this almost daily. I actually dreamt that I was a sharpie marker in the office I work at. It was pretty wild and not nearly as boring as one would think. I remember there was an endless string of inner thought and dialogue involved with being a Sharpie…

If I had a choice though, I think a gust of wind would be the ultimate. A gust of wind can go all around the world. Think of all you would be able to see and experience in your travels. All the bits of everything you would touch, smell, see, hear, pick up and carry. Plus a gust of wind is usually pretty short lived so you wouldn’t have to wait long before you could come back as something else.

Yeah definitely a gust of wind… or a helicopter.

"War Profiteering is Killing Us All", office supplies on postcard

What’s your favorite piece of art that you made and where did you get the idea for it?

Ok… well that’s a tough question… That’s like having a favorite kid or favorite flavor of M & M.

But the one that comes to mind, as far as uniqueness, was this piece called “The Enlightening”. I painted it on a broken wooded piece of a road barricade that I had found on the side of the road. I was really excited to paint on the stripes that it had! I sat on the piece of wood for like a year before it spoke to me.

The piece turned out to be about a mental change I had went through. I had a new girlfriend at the time and also great core of friends who were really helping me to see life in a different perspective. Their philosophy hit me like a switch that turned on in my consciousness. It was a really exciting, uplifting and inspiring time. I was very lucky to be able to absorb the change those experiences brought about.

What’s really special about this piece is how animated it is. When this painting is hung where sunlight hits it, it has constantly changing aspects. It takes on a new form almost every half an hour depending how what angle the sunlight is hitting it. Head on light causes the reflective colors in the barricade to blaze to life, almost to the point where it’s hard to look at it and this causes the images painted on it to become like silhouettes. As the sun moves more on an angle to the painting, the figures become more vibrant and the background tends to play the role of a background more.

I was curious how painting on the reflectors would work but I never thought it would have turned out how it did.

"The Enlightening", acrylic + polyurethane on road barricade

Do you listen to music while you paint/draw? What do you listen to?

Yeah music is pretty essential to concentrate for long periods of time for me. It’s on probably about 98% of the time. I love music, who doesn’t! But I also like to mix it up with some random podcast lectures that people send me.

Jams wise: lately, the staples have been AESOP ROCK (everytime I listen to his jams, I find a new little nugget philosophy to digest!), NASA, Bear vs. Shark, Charles Mingus, MC5 and Hot Water Music. More recently, I’ve been studying Panda Bear’s Person Pitch album. That’s been real tasty.

But really, it boils down to anything that will take me somewhere while sitting at my studio table.

"We've Come a Long, Long Way Together", acrylic, oil, pencil on found wood

You compared your process to the way that Brian Wilson made Pet Sounds, in that you bring a lot of different elements together to make one image. This made me wonder, how long does it typically take you to complete a piece?

The amount of time it takes to complete a piece varies. If an image or idea has been fully figured out in thought or on paper, it doesn’t take too long. It’s all business then and getting it done.

But a piece that’s more free style may take a bit longer. It takes a little more time to swoon the idea out of hiding, I guess. It’s like a lot of trial and error but the errors end up opening another path to take and these tend to be the more energetic, experimental and original pieces.

"In America We Trusted", acrylic + caulk on wood

The A/V Kids Experiment consisted of two artists and two musicians improvising outside of Biddle Gallery. How did people walking by react to you guys?

The A/V Kids Experiment was a blast. It’s a huge rush to work in such a creative environment. Jason Rohler and Brian McGuire are very talented musicians and the jams they cooked up evolved into every size, shape, and color of music under the sun. It was an incredibly positive experience.

Growing up, all my close friends were musicians and I wanted to find out a way to jam with them on their level. I think this is pretty much as close as it gets without learning to properly play an instrument.

People seem to dig it. It transcended age groups too, which was surprising. We had some kids hanging out and asking questions, we had a dad and a couple small children hanging out with a stroller for at least a good hour and even an elderly couple who sat on a bench and soaked up some of the vibes for a good while. A lot of people who were stopped in their cars at the intersection and honked their horns with thumbs up! It was great.

It’s funny you brought this up, anyone interested can scope an experiment out for themselves at The Biddle Gallery in Wyandotte on Saturday, May 30th. Jason and I just confirmed the date with Karen at Biddle, today. We’ll go from noon till either someone calls the cops on us or it gets too dark to jam.

The A/V Kids Experiment is on Saturday, May 30th at Biddle Gallery in Wyandotte. You can see more of Ryan’s work at http://ryanmweiss.com.

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10 Comments on “Q + A with Ryan Weiss”

• Karen Thomas
  

  Great interview Christina! Ryan is the best. I hope you can come see Ryan and the A/V Kids Experiment in action on May 30th at Biddle Gallery.

  05-07-09 » 2:31 PM »

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• christina
  

  Thanks Karen! I’m planning on it. I might be wandering around next Third Friday, too.

  05-07-09 » 10:07 PM »

• Karen Thomas
  

  Cool. Come say hi to me.

  05-08-09 » 2:14 PM »

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• Karen Thomas
  

  hello christina!

  great meeting you and dennis saturday. ryan, the g8, and the a/v kids experiment were outside until after 10:00pm painting and jamming. it was a fantastic event. thanks for helping promote it.

  more fun coming soon. i will send you info soon about our annual summer solstice party on june 19.

  06-03-09 » 11:02 AM »

• christina
  

  It was great meeting you too!! Wow, the next one is only 2 weeks away.

  06-04-09 » 11:09 AM »

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