Matthew Ronay: The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode

Sensual and psychedelic sculpture affirming the primacy of the handmade object, from a leading New York sculptor

The vibrant, small-scale wooden sculptures of New York-based artist Matthew Ronay (born 1976) cull from the vocabularies of organic things–flora and fauna from land and sea, human anatomy, and water systems. Fantastical architectures find form, too–gateways and towers–in the artist’s technicolor array of soft-curved and intricately honed formations. Melding vocabularies of modernist abstraction and ritualistic objects, Ronay’s sculptures and enigmatic installations express the primacy of the handmade object. His inspirations constitute a zigzagging thread of artists and scientists from the 18th century to the present whose works reflect natural phenomena consciously or unconsciously. Ronay also proposes the possibility that inherited memories of the genesis and evolution of life recapitulate themselves in abstract works of sculpture and painting. Produced in conjunction with the artist’s exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, this monograph presents Ronay’s sensual and psychedelic sculptures in extensive detail through photographs and installation views.