Ryan Decker
DOOMSDAYERS
© Ryan Decker, photo by Sean Davidson.
In Ryan Decker’s furniture, sculpture, animation, and digital paintings, the tangible and intangible collide. His objects live somewhere between the physical and the virtual—these two planes constantly perused, confused, and infused. This refers to more than just his making process, which happens primarily in VR, but also to the sources of his creations and even the destina- tion, which are taken from the playbook of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Decker’s 2022 hyper-lamps like Sluggard Waker utilize a future-medie- val trompe l’oeil that takes flat sheets of printed aluminum into the round. Boggling to look at, these pieces disrupt our perception of them, even in the flesh; the brain simply cannot keep up with their changing dimensionality. The same can be said about images of his exhibition Feudal Relief from the same year, where 3D works in wood and bronze appear to be props in a cluttered video game still, but one that was brought to an impossibly high resolution.
A mischievous charcuterie board outfitted with a CD drive or a poster display stand exhibiting surrealist landscapes are other bizarre propositions. Are they the prizes we work towards in a simulation, or goofy mockeries to the collective lives we live exceptionally online? In and of itself, Decker’s whole practice is a fantastical, immersive exercise in “alternativism”—not better or worse than our current moment in society, but a self-referential something else entirely.
B. 1997, Cape Coral, FL
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
FL594
Ryan Decker, Sluggard Waker, 2023, UV-printed aluminum, PLA, acrylic, and lamp parts. Courtesy of the artist.
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Ryan Decker, Comfort Station, 2024, Aluminum, resin, and nylon webbing. Courtesy of the artist.
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Ryan Decker, Leaky Bladder, 2024, Fiberglass, resin, aluminum, and cherry wood. Courtesy of the artist.