TAUSIK RYDER IS A PIONEER OF TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED ART-MAKING, MERGING CONCEPTUAL, DIGITAL AND ANALOG PRACTICES AND I AM HERE FOR IT!
Jason Vass Gallery is now exhibiting Body Language by artist Douglas Tausik Ryder through October 19, 2019 (1452 E. Sixth Street, Los Angeles). The exhibition kicked off with an opening reception on September 7.
Woodworking goes digital as Douglas Tausik Ryder’s sculptural works exist both as digital data and in dimensional forms that connect technology to tradition, employing exploratory computer-driven exercises and formulas, as well as his process of conceptual, aesthetic, and physical refinement. Counterintuitively, these realms are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, this duality allows his work to flow through multiple planes of existence that link technology and aesthetics.
Informed by decades of Tausik Ryder’s trial and error methods that cumulatively push against technical and industrial limitations, the new sculptures represent his most commanding work yet. Technological advancement has always been at the center of art-making but never more so than today. His technology-assisted art making responds to the digital age through a pioneering creative process, which delivers expressive, crafted forms.
Since the beginning of his career, Tausik Ryder has produced work that explores the limits of technology assisted art-making. His pioneering body of work dates back to 1992, with paintings that deployed billboard printing technology, which he further overpainted – evidence of his long preoccupation to master emerging technologies in service of a creative vision.
“All my life I’ve felt that technical and industrial processes yielded the most amazing objects,” says Tausik Ryder. “I was driven to master such techniques, using them for artistic rather than manufacturing purposes.”
Tausik Ryder’s innovative industrial processes use geometric code (G-code) – which is a CAD/CAM language – that drives tool paths and shape formation on a CNC (computer numerical control) machine. The machine processes a material, in Tausik Ryder’s case wood, to meet specifications through the code’s programmed instruction. Creative decisions iterate as they travel back and forth between sources and image making. Machine produced, Tausik Ryder’s pieces are finished by hand, presenting sensuous and tactile surfaces. The computer aids tradition, and bodily forms coexist with rational geometry.
What sets Tausik Ryder apart is that he is the only artist working in this medium to have an industrial CNC machine tool in his studio, which means his works are created using no outside fabricator. “There’s a big difference,” he says, “between what you can describe to a fabricator, and what comes about through your own engagement with the process”.
The sculptures in their abstract forms negotiate a deft conversation between the biomorphic and the geometric with one figure spawning the next, delivering a formal and ever-evolving consistency. The loosely referential shapes evoke natural forms and the female body is clearly an inspiration, as is the idea of an almost mythical organic presence that is universal to all humanity and if shared in the right way offers opportunities for generosity, connectedness and hope. Tausik Ryder’s large-scale Venus, with a sphere-shaped orifice cutting through its core, is at the center of the exhibition and invites people to step inside. A smaller version of this sculpture was recently installed in Grand Park in Irvine, CA. Tausik Ryder sees all these new works as “proposals” to be scaled up into large-scale public art that people can engage with, offering a meaningful experiential interaction. In 2020, one of his sculptures will be shown as part of the European Cultural Center’s exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2020.
Tausik Ryder’s work has been compared to that of Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Isamu Noguchi, and Claes Oldenberg. His art has been shown previously at Jason Vass, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY; and the University of Pennsylvania. His pieces are also in noted private collections including that of Tom Ford and Richard Buckley. Tausik Ryder attended Columbia University, CCNY, and NYU’s Center for Advanced Digital Applications. A native New Yorker, he now resides in Los Angeles, CA and Shelter Island, NY with his wife and daughter.