Matthew Palladino

December 02, 2011, 8:15am

Ryan Travis Christian at Western Exhibitions

I’ve never seen anyone successfully treat a pencil as a painting tool the way Ryan Travis Christian does. In his current show, entitled River Rats, at Western Exhibitions is a large array of his recent drawings of technically proficient geometric explosions, early 20^th century-style cartoon characters, drug references, and op-art patterns that fluctuate between being graphic and expressionistic. The space in the drawings is both converging and exploding simultaneously. The work itself seems mischievous, the product of a recurring theme of a self-referential suburban upbringing and the tomfoolery that accompanies the banality of growing up in the ‘burbs.