Philip Ringler
Philip Ringler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.ringler
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipringler/
Artist Statement
My work communicates difficult, ambiguous feelings, politics, and philosophies using the medium of Conceptual Photography.
It’s about communicating the stuff that keeps me up at night, the looping thoughts about something that I experienced as a kid or in a dream that I just can’t shake, some spiritual experience that feels impossible to talk about, some big, esoteric idea that I just have to get out, but doing it in a way that is symbolic, nuanced and metaphorical, not obviously autobiographical. It’s about communicating something I feel is important about the world and want people to think about, feel, to question.
I challenge myself to make photographic art that is as ambitious and fully realized as possible, often failing along the way but always learning and exploring new paths. I don’t want my work to be a one-liner. It shouldn’t just be formulaic and easy to understand. That’s what entertainment is for. I’m trying to make photography difficult for myself and my viewers, not to be pretentious or craft some persona, but to celebrate knowledge, intellectualism, and depth in art in a way that moves the medium forward without derailing it completely.
The project determines the style and technical choices. Sometimes I shoot color, other times black and white. I typically shoot 35 mm or full-frame digital, but I will use whatever the project calls for. I don’t typically do heavy post-production in Photoshop. I create a lot in-camera and either work with natural or studio lighting.
I hope the viewer will bring their unique experiences to my work and co-create narratives, unveiling symbolic meaning by seeing, learning, and imagining.
My next exhibition in Shanghai, China, "Art Meets Ideas" is curated by Vera Sun. It will be a group exhibition in a 9000 sq meter Art Center called Hongmiao. I'm showing five pieces from Element.element, my collaboration with James Saxon. The exhibition is part of a Biennale and runs October 2- November 10 and is expected to be attended by over 500,000 guests.
If you are in China, the location is : 上海虹庙艺术中心
My latest book, This Exhibit Is Closed. can be purchased through my website. Many of the pictures featured in this exhibition are from this book. Here is a latest review by Photographer and Professor, Dana Davis from Sacramento, CA.
https://www.philipringler.com/book
Philip Ringler’s new book of photographs, This Exhibit Is Closed., Ringworm Press, is a wonder for the eyes and for the imagination that lurks right behind them. This composition of neglected adventure parks and amusement rides has an icing of humor and irony with a crust of the temporal limits of human endeavors but with a warm, whimsical core of rich, poetic nutrition. What fun!
In these places where sets and stages were built to encompass the animal performers in an illusory environment or silly, smiling faces greeted visitors enroute to the show or the next stop on the theme park trail but now, over time and with neglect, these illusions have holes opened to stark realities. Backgrounds of clouds and water and jungle foliage is torn by falling plaster, peeling paint and graffiti. The suspenders of disbelief are caught in the act of holding up the floating rabbit. Scaffolding, wires, bricks and hinges are revealed against the still strong images of artificial spaces. Ringler brings us along on his adventures.
“The best laid schemes of mice and men…” are a subtle undertow of this book but not enough to evoke anything like despair. Joy and humor and the delight of metaphoric pairing of disparate images gives the viewer much to turn over with the harmonics of fine music and dance. Ringler has set these images with delightful sequencing. They move the viewer in ways that keep any one way of seeing this work in limbo. Pagination is the way a book of images is given the rhythm to dance and these photographs can dance!
I believe that most of our perception is recognition. We see what we already know. That is, after the age of, say 5 years. Art allows us the opportunity to see what we first can only sense as wonder. This Exhibit Is Closed will open a way into visions that are not presented by “the way things are”. The step after “What the…?” is into “Wow”. I encourage you to enter the exhibit that is closed.
-Dana Davis
Exhibitions:
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Upcoming Exhibitions:
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