Serpentes Phantauma

Du Lundi au Samedi de 11h à 20h Métro Louvre-Rivoli (ligne 1) Chris Ryniak was born in 1976 in the suburbs of Detroit. He spent his childhood basking in the warm glow of Saturday morning cartoons and flipping over rocks in search of insects, reptiles and ghosts. A graduate and former instructor of the Ringling School of Art and Design, He is now a painter and sculptor of all manner of critters. Chris’ work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the US including Miami, LA, New York City as well as Hamburg and Rome. His paintings have also been published in numerous books and periodicals in the States as well as in Europe and Singapore. Chris resides in a coastal Ohio Dutch Colonial with his wife, two children, dog, cat and menagerie of taxidermied animals. Sadly, no ghosts as of yet. Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct visual art media. For example, a work on canvas that combines paint, ink, and collage could properly be called a "mixed media" work. When creating a painted or photographed work using mixed media it is important to choose the layers carefully and allow enough drying time between the layers to ensure the final work will have integrity. If many different media are used it is equally important to choose a sturdy foundation upon which the different layers are imposed. Many interesting effects can be achieved by using mixed media. Often, found objects are used in conjunction with traditional artist media, such as paints and graphite, to express a meaning in the everyday life. In this manner, many different elements of art become more flexible than with traditional artist media. Having grown up on the West Coast most of my life and coming from a family of uber ‘antique’ collectors and artists, my eclectic upbringing was filled with a wide range of ’Pop’ ephemera. Many of those inspirations now show up in my work and stem from the backdrop of my childhood. The Subject of my paintings is a world of side-show icons, deviant Animalia, and ‘masked’ glorified cartoon alter egos. I utilize these icons and character cultures as antithetical counterparts to what we are lead to believe as being innocent and socially acceptable. Although misfits on the surface, a sense of relation is understood, secret from the public - we are all misfits; hiding behind animated personas, odd and beautifully unusual. Who is it that we relate to? The lonely little boy hiding in a bear suite, the evil lustful pool-hall wolf, the sexualized little girl who secretly wants more. The environment and its limited population are meant to conjure these questions, the viewers are confronted with fi