Ryan Kelder "See Through Smile" 8x10

Ryan creates work out of what we are surrounded by in order to make meaning about what we are surrounded by. I emphasize the people, communities, and the things which come from us.
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See Through Smile is a response to consuming civilization. Distrusting the smiling facade that commercials of companies who market their products with positively and healthy implications to trick us in believing consumption is good. Humans buy products, get diseases, then pay for bandaids to heal. The healing bandaid represented by the leaves sewn into the hole riddled painters frame, the frame representing civilization construction. Humans go to nature, in one form of healing, but consume products which contribute to the destruction of nature. The leaves and frame entombed in paint, twined together in the relentless civilization blanket of paint. We are frozen as this piece See Through Smile, demonstrates us, participants in marketing products, and companies, smiling in the face of destruction disguised as healing. We are the civilization business engine, hear us roar.