Galerie Mikael Andersen would like to welcome you to the opening of Rival Poets with new paintings and works on paper by British artist Ryan Mosley on Friday 25 January 2019, 5-7 pm.

The figure of an enigmatic bearded man wearing a top hat emerges everywhere in Ryan Mosley’s paintings and drawings. These works evoke a surreal staged world of fictitious characters that seem impossible to pin down in time and place.

Over the years, the characters inhabiting Ryan Mosley’s works have evolved into a cast of musicians, artists and poets – fringe characters who needed a space to be depicted in. The theatre stage became the perfect pictorial anchor to ground these characters. Here the protagonists can play out their narratives and at the same time, the surrounding stage offers a portrayal of the internal space of the mysterious artists.

The depiction of the theatre has been well documented in various genres of painting in art history. In this exhibition the theatre stage offers a metaphysical space that is, in fact, similar to an art gallery where the pictures on the walls tell the story, much like the words of a poet which make the audience visualise the spoken word, conjured through an audible gesture.

Ryan Mosley takes a great interest in the slightly skewered perspectives of art. The exhibition’s title refers to a small painting by the American artist R. B. Kitaj entitled “The Rival Poet”. The exhibition’s opening date January 25^th also marks the celebration of Scottish poet Robert Burns. This coincidence incited Molsey to paint this series of works, not necessarily as an homage to either, but as a gesture to give the cast of the paintings – the artists and poets – more of an identity.

Ryan Mosley (b. 1980 in Chesterfield, UK) trained at the University of Huddersfield and Royal College of Art, London. He has exhibited his paintings in numerous galleries and museums across the world and his work is part of the Arts Council Collection, UK, The Saatchi Collection, London, and Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg. Ryan Mosley lives and works in Sheffield, UK.

For more information on the exhibition and for press photos please contact the gallery on tel. 33 33 05 12 or email: cph@mikaelandersen.com. The exhibition ends 2 March 2019. Daily opening hours: Tuesday-Friday 12-18, Saturday 11-15.

Photos: Jan Søndergaard.