back issue

The secret to experiencing the art of Giles Ryder is that the installation of his work - carefully arranged in a gallery space - is crucial to understanding his methods and his message. As Ryder explains, his practice involves examining the psychological and phenomenological aspects of colour and light, in addition to a consideration of 'reduction' - of form, colour, line, medium - and a 'compaction' of modern art history.

Ryder works in three modes: hand-rolled aluminium wall-works coated with pearlescent auto-lacquers, neon-light constructions hovering above ultra-shiny panels, and reflective 'mirrorchromes' created from mirrored and coloured Perspex. Ryder has commented that 'the appearance of the painting changes with the fall of light and the position of the viewer'. When installed together, the neon works placed on the floor bounce luminescent colour in complex nuances throughout the architecture of the gallery space.

The artist is a co-founder and Director of Peloton Gallery in Sydney, and describes his curatorial and gallery management activities as an extension of his practice. In 2006 his work was shown at its best: in a large installation at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's annual 'rising star' artist showcase 'NEW06' in Melbourne. The space enabled him to show his largest work yet, Spectragraph [galaxy 5000], 2006, a rolled-aluminium work at over 6 metres
wide.

Ryder's choice of materials is by no means arbitrary. The artist spent six years working as an industrial painter on the Story Bridge in Brisbane, and describes his technical skills as self-taught, having developed out of his previous employment, as well as study in Brisbane, Edinburgh and Sydney (he completed his Master of Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts in 2005). Ryder's selection of materials produces a collision between the mass-produced
factory product and the custom-made object. He combines 'readymade' industrial materials, such as aluminium and auto-lacquer, with recycled commercial items like old neon signage. There is an element of the production line when he hand-rolls the aluminium works, but to complete the process each work is meticulously rendered and coated. The resultant works achieve a level of material complexity and resist easy classification.

Nonetheless, some obvious connections can be made. The artist's use of auto-lacquer and stylised stripes evoke car culture and the aesthetics of the automotive industry. Ryder's choice of neon colours and his layering of autolacquers and enamel brings to mind the retro 'kustom kolors' described in Tom Wolfe's famous essay 'The kandy kolored tangerine flake streamline baby' (1963), where colour, layered coats of paint and an impressive 'in-your-face' materiality is of paramount concern, and that obsessive strand of 1960s car
culture is unequivocally described as an art in itself. That said, although Ryder's earlier works, such as his 2002 series 'A Night at the Drags', explicitly reference the optical sensation of headlights and taillights speeding along a highway, he is cagey about the relevance of the car to his more recent - notably vertically striped - pieces.

Describing his work as a 'hybrid between minimalism, abstraction, op and pop art', Ryder suggests that his work is actually 'more abstract' than a direct reference to automobile culture and aesthetics. 'It comes back to art and art history. It's pop but it's not. It's not pure ... it has more to do with Australian culture.' With this comment, a whole new set of references emerge - from striped awnings to RSL Club decor. And unlike earlier modernist forms of abstraction, Ryder's abstraction does not preclude references to popular
culture and society.

Academic Carolyn Barnes has commented that Ryder's abstract work has 'moved far beyond its modernist origins' and has opened up to include 'simultaneous allusions to commodity culture and vanguard art practice'. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Ryder's Fluorochrome/mirrorchrome [transparent radiation] M.I.R.H. 06 portrait, 2006. Constructed from coloured and mirrored Perspex and aluminium, this large, pink, luminous 'mirrorchrome' is the perfect antithesis to a classic modernist monochrome. The 'traditional' monochrome denied subjectivity, rejecting all references to the outside world. Ryder manipulates this art history, and uses the reflective yet painterly surface of his mirrorchromes to literally pull in the contents of the exhibition space, dragging the viewer, and
the other artworks in the room, into the surface of his mirrors in a distorted, radiant blur.

In his work Daze of disco (silver strutter), 2006 (as shown on the back cover of this issue), recycled neon lettering from an old Chinese sign is combined with custom-designed neon lines and a high-gloss door panel. This rests at a slight tilt on the floor, flowing colour out into the exhibition space. Ryder named this work after the band Yo Lo Tengo's song 'Daze of Disco', and it recalls the peculiarity of the disco era, the instability of subculture identification and the
intangibility of memory. Daze of disco also clearly celebrates - with impurity - the pure concepts of colour, light and form.
 
 
 
Jesse Stein


Giles Ryder is represented by John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, and George Petelin Gallery, Gold Coast.
 
 
 
This article appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Art & Australia.