Bryan Ida: DEEP

Billis Williams Gallery is pleased to present Bryan Ida: DEEP, the gallery’s fifth solo exhibition of the Los Angeles-based artist’s paintings.  DEEP features Ida’s new series of paintings addressing current environmental issues and continues through June 3rd.

In the new exhibition, Ida explores the complicated relationship between humans and the natural world.  The delicate balance and beauty of the world’s ecosystems is threatened by the unsustainable way of life we have grown accustomed to.  The massive loss of flora and fauna in the name of “progress” is at the heart of this new series.

Ida is using his signature layering technique but has also introduced a new way of splitting images to create juxtapositions.  In the Nature paintings, Ida cuts apart landscapes and layers them - breaking their continuity, while bending and merging what remains into unexpected compositions. The interweaving of two worlds speaks to the struggle for the future of our planet that we face today.

In the Fading Light paintings, Ida explores the theme of endangered species, depicting each animal obscured by a deep darkness. The fading light is a metaphor for the dwindling populations of endangered species and the threat of extinction that looms over them. This twilight also represents the passage of time, the impermanence of life and the move from the unconscious to awareness.   As light frequently does, it also represents hope and possibility in the face of adversity.

These paintings are visually stunning - jewel-toned colors, elegant patterns, delicate marking-making overlaying the understructures - and yet their messages are nuanced and complicated.  The paintings embody the wonder and the beauty of the natural world as well as the fractured and complicated relationship we have with it.

Bryan Ida studied music composition before moving into fine art.  After studying at Sonoma State University and San Jose State University, Ida moved to Los Angeles to be a studio assistant for abstract expressionist painter and printmaker Sam Francis.  Ida has shown throughout the US as well as in Japan, Korea, Italy, and Taiwan and his work has been published in Artweek, Fabrik, Artscene, LA Weekly, and Art Ltd among others.  Ida is a member of MENSA and lives and works in Los Angeles.