Melding vocabularies of modernist abstraction and ritualistic objects, Matthew Ronay's sculptures and enigmatic installations express the primacy of the handmade object. Suggesting the transcendent qualities of our bodies and the world we inhabit, Ronay’s meticulously crafted works embody modes of visual production that remind us that objects are not merely representations of a material culture of mass production, but rather are sites of projection: acting as locations which embody and reflect our inception and corporeal struggle. Formally drawing on traditions of non-Western art making, folk and pre-avant-garde art, as well as surrealism, mythology, and psychedelia, each tongue-like protuberance, textured edge, nook, hole, and orifice articulate Ronay’s distinct visceral language.

Ronay’s 360 lecture will chart the realization that nature is fundamental to his work, describing how the artist envisions his inspirations as a zig-zagging thread of artists and scientists from the 18th century to the present whose works reflect natural phenomena, consciously or unconsciously. Ronay also proposes the possibility that inherited memories of the genesis and evolution of life recapitulate themselves in abstract works of sculpture and painting.