George Billis Gallery | 5/14-6/18 | Los Angeles, CA

Complicated Histories

Ron Rizk brings together buildings and nature for a new show at George Billis Gallery in Los Angeles.

By Gina Teichert

“I don’t want to be painting just scenes. They need to be more than that, there needs to be something else going on,” says artist Ron Rizk of his latest body of work, on view at George Billis Gallery from May 14 to June 18. “It’s realism, but it’s a little bit beyond that in the sense that there’s some other things happening, almost a sense of mystery.”River View, A Moment in Time, oil on panel, 24 x 36"According to gallerist Tressa Williams, Rizk’s landscapes are “rich in complicated histories—industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized—the past seen through rose-colored glasses.”

Though familiar, there is an ethereal, almost otherworldly quality to his paintings, achieved through a unique model building process. Instead of working from photographs, Rizk creates models in his studio and paints them from observation.

“I build all of the structures myself out of paper. And that goes back to painting objects in shallow space,” he says of his earlier work featuring subjects like tools and toys, “which some people might mistake for just still life paintings, but they were more than that. They were narrative paintings because they were things someone had used.” Dream House, oil on panel, 24 x 36"“I didn’t want to give up this idea of this intimacy between myself and what I’m looking at,” Rizk says of his shift toward architectural subject matter. “And so, building the structures myself—and the landscapes are all entirely invented—I get the freedom to place these things in the environment that I want them to be.”

Standout works in the show include Desert Temples, a midcentury-inspired compound still under construction, and Backyard Monoliths, a nod to Stonehenge’s Neolithic neighbor, Avebury. “I like the idea of leaving things unfinished in some cases, or even the look of destruction or poor maintenance,” says Rizk, noting that the monoliths at Avebury had been quarried by later generations in need of building material.Backyard Monoliths, oil on panel, 22 x 28"Williams notes, “The impermanence and fragility of the structures echo the impermanence of memory and of human civilization. The paintings are devoid of human figures while being primarily about the impact of industry and about human interventions in the landscape.”

The artist confirms this interpretation. “The figures never were important to these paintings,” he says. “They depict a moment in time when somehow people have disappeared for that moment.” For the veteran Southern California artist, these paintings are more about the juxtaposition of human-made structures and the landscape. Desert Temples, oil on panel, 22 x 28"Rizk calls on forebearers like Giorgio de Chirico with his unembellished execution of the buildings, and taps into a dreamlike pastel palette best seen in person. “When you get close to it, it’s very rich, but from a few feet away, it looks like it’s more minimal than it is,” he notes. “Nature is always richer than what we build,” says Rizk. “Hopefully, there’s some kind of poetic documentary there.” —