Jouissance / Fractures

Ryan Reininga & Joel Woodard

Jun. 19 - Jul. 17 2010

About Jouissance

This series of work chronicles a spiritual awakening, and or self-awareness surrounding the ‘religious’ overtones that propagate the American Dream as a dogmatic construct from which all personal goals fall subsequent.  The ‘religion’ of mass consumption coupled with self-righteousness and entitlement have never been more prevalent by one society since the twilight of Rome.

This series examines the irreverent blindness associated with conservative fundamentalism and its wholesale acceptance of the corporately packaged “American Dream” as motivational infrastructure, as well as correlates, the tone of contemporary fundamentalist Christianity and it’s narcotic effect it has on the populous in terms of offering social solace through compulsive, ignorance-based rhetoric, rather than any form of self-spiritual enlightenment and or knowledge.  The final characteristic being the ‘sacrament’, or mass consumption of material goods; in which pharmaceuticals, sex, and religion have been chosen to be representative of the multi-faceted dependency our culture currently faces as well as the power wielded by those that repress basic human advancement.

About Fractures

My most recent work reveals my interest in the convergence of reality and imagination. The sum of the elements to which I'm drawn and the shapes and brushstrokes that happen in and around the images become, in my work, something other than what they began as.  In creating my work, I remain conscious of this presence that is evoked when the elements combine and morph into something else.  As the creative process unfolds, it never fails to reveal new and known inspirations, though what the work is trying to express often remains concealed.  

About Ryan Reininga

About Joel Woodard