"Ryan Hill at Civilian Art Projects"

Maura Judkis

Washington City Paper

At least the origin of Ryan Hill’s meandering drawings isn’t readily apparent—for an Internet-inspired show, you’ll find no familiar viral video stars or Web memes. Instead, Hill presents a pastiche of mysterious and cartoonishly macabre images culled from Google Images searches, Flickr and YouTube—face-painted goths, pirate treasure chests, a sketch of Elizabeth Taylor’s severed head—and often, his written observations of his drawings (Taylor’s head is “Half obscured by a cloud of White Diamonds”). It’s all tongue-in-cheek, from the skeleton Marilyn Monroe’s sexy pose to the skulls slurping down Tasti-Delite. But like our 140-character online attention spans, Hill’s work seems to befall the fate of every cool thing that’s been linked to on a twentysomething’s Google Talk status: interesting until the next shiny thing comes along to distract us.

July 10 - August 8, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, July 10, 2009, 7 - 9pm

In his first solo exhibition with Civilian Art Projects, artist Ryan Hill curates content from the “digital museums” of Google, YouTube and Flickr and reassembles it as works on paper in the gallery space. Quoting, tracing, and drawing from internet images, the artist describes his intimate installations as “a free range of associations, from the gothic to the absurd.”