Ryan Travis Christian is an artist who pokes taboos and fluffs his intrusive thoughts, going against better taste in pursuit of a new type of feeling that can only be called tragic-erotic. Known for his sfumato-heavy graphite drawings, which often place anthropomorphic figures seemingly plucked from early 20th-century animation into sordid, soft-focus milieus, Christian is now magnifying his obsessive micro-transgressions in girthy paint: public satire at impregnable scale, all the while continuing his tendency of poking at the paradoxical relationship between childish cartoons and ominous messages in a darkly distinctive style.
Ryan Travis Christian’s solo and two-person shows include Over the Influence, Hong Kong; Ross+Kramer Gallery in New York, NY; Arsham/Fieg Gallery in New York, NY; Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, CA; the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, NC; and The Hole in New York. Christian has been included in group shows in Antwerp, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Detroit, Los Angeles, London, New York, Paris, Reykjavik, Rotterdam, San Francisco, and Toronto. His work has been written about in frieze, ArtNews, Art Papers, Juxtapoz, New American Paintings, Artsy, Artspace, Daily Serving, Indy Week and the Associated Press. DAZED recently named Christian as one of the “top ten artists working with monochrome.” He is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and lives and works in the Chicagoland area.