Vulnerable Structures

from Ryan M. Reynolds "Above-Water" July 18 - Sept. 19 | Sue Greenwood Fine Art | Laguna Beach, CA

R YA N M . R E Y N O L D S

Ryan Reynolds, who is interested in piers as both structures and social spaces, has been painting them of f and on for more than 20 years. In 1999, after returning from a year in Europe, he painted his first, a large side view of the Santa Cruz Whar f that was traded for six months of studio rent. A few years later, he painted an aerial view of the Berkeley pier, which was then the longest wooden pier in California. Reynolds got the vantage point he wanted by working on the deck of a building located at the foot of the pier, which was closed in 2015 due to structural problems. As Reynolds has come to understand, piers are vulnerable structures. Seaclif f Pier in Aptos which Reynolds painted an aerial view of in 2022—was recently demolished after extensive storm damage caused by a barrage of atmospheric rivers.

In a recent series of paintings depicting the piers of the Central California coast, Reynolds has been using drone photos as source material, giving the works a seagull-eye point of view. Reynolds is a formalist who paints objectively but never fussily, and his pier paintings play the geometr y of man-made structures of f of the reflective flow of water and waves beneath them. Star ting with a gridded structure of orange lines that sometimes peek through the finished composition, Reynolds paints his subject matter in sensitively applied, semiabstract planes and dashes. This provisional way of painting is per fectly tuned to painting piers and their structures that have been battered by waves and weather and rebuilt many times.

Reynolds has found that piers can be essays on structure while also having a sociological side. “Pacifica Pier is a blue collar place,” he notes. “Many of the folks out there are fishing to eat.” His painting of that pier a gray-floored dogleg dotted with open containers and bait boxes—respectfully depicts the T-shir ted fishermen who line its planks, waiting for a fish to bite. Reynold’s painting of Fisherman’s Whar f in Monterey, which he thinks of as “touristy,” features the bold colors and broad folded roofs that come with commercialism. Seen from above, the boxy buildings look both festive and fragile, dwar fing the rows of tiny tourists who stroll down the shaded whar f.

When Reynolds found out that Seaclif f Pier had been demolished, he was surprised. “It has been there for so long, my lifetime and well into the past. I guess I thought of it as a permanent landmark on the coast with that creepy cement ship at the end, which was once a dance hall and bar during the Prohibition era. ” The sense of piers as a place of pleasures, past and present, is there in Reynold’s paintings along with ever ything else. He paints them with an af fection that enlivens and activates the finished canvases. His piers are painted with a cer tain tenderness that acknowledges the vulnerability of the human beings who enjoy them and of the structures themselves.

– John Seed

Capitola Pier Oil on wood 48" x 48"