Watering Hole - Limited Edition 1 of 25 Photograph

Please Note: This artist is currently on vacation through 7/15/2023. All pieces are noted as NOT available but they will be upon the artist's return. Ryan Chesla (°1971, Munich, Germany) makes photos, sculptures and mixed media artworks. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, Chesla seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life. His photos establish a link between the landscape’s reality and that imagined by its conceiver. These works focus on concrete questions that determine our existence. By emphasizing aesthetics, he often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation. His works are characterized by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. By exploring the concept of landscape in a nostalgic way, he investigates the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to us. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to conjure the realms of our imagination. His works sometimes radiate a cold and latent alienation and isolation. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. Ryan Chesla lives, works, and plays in Palm Springs, California. He earned his master of fine arts degree from Seattle University in 2015.