Ryan McGinness is our hero. No joke.
A former designer, he’s taken the art of screenprinting and blown everyone out of the water. What started as simple iconographic paintings have naturally progressed into mindblowing multi-layered “paintings” at a massive scale. His brilliant sense of color and composition is a force to be reckoned with.
He’s recenly moved into the realm of sculpture and is taking that to another level as well. Who knew he could translate his paintings into 3-dimensional masterpieces that don’t even make sense?
Where McGinness really lets his work shine are in his book projects. That designer side of him seems to appreciate the craft of book designing. Whether it be a catalog of his work or a custom artist’s book project, each page is meticulously designed, seeming as though he has treated each page as one of his paintings. In 2003, he released Project Rainbow, in which he created paintings specifially to be tightly photographed and cropped for the pages in the book. The curling paper, the ink texture, and all the little imperfections that exist in screenprinting are on display in all their beautiful glory.
His most recent project, No Sin/No Future acts as sort of a process book. Showing behind the scenes photos (including an assistant screen printing an image on McGinness’s freshly shaven head), bits and pieces of paintings, inspiration, sketches and text from contributing authors and Ryan himself. Again, each page is meticulously designed in a way that conveys the complete chaos that must constantly surround an incredibly successful artist that makes incredibly chaotic work. As a design/printing nerd, I can truly appreciate his masterful use of a spot metallic silver ink throughout the book. mmmmm tasty.
There’s not much more to say except research this guy a little more on your own. Visit his website, buy his books, explore his paintings, appreciate all the little details, and if you ever get the chance, see his work in person. I promise you it will blow your mind.
Thanks for giving much cred to this artist. I’m a fine art screenprinter and have been inspired by his work for several years now. His stuff just keeps getting better and better!