RUTHANN is pleased to present Alone with the Moon, a three-person exhibition featuring the work of Biff Elrod, Kathryn Lynch and Enrico Riley. These painters present wonders that emerge from the mundane and sublime; they use the practice of painting to cultivate a sense of timelessness within the human experience. Kathryn Lynch evokes the humbling sensation that we often seek in nature; painting visions that feel both ineffable and personal. Biff Elrod’s recent work gives us glimpses of urban humans surrounded by others, coexisting en masse. Elrod is a humanist painter, and works from photographs he takes anonymously, creating something cinematic from a snapshot. In his recent work Enrico Riley explores the meditative practice of painting over and through time, focusing on handled, folded paper. Rileys states, “The paintings allow me to observe myself looking.” Through the ancient technology of painting, meaning and self awareness are built and maintained as the painter captures a moment in the brain, eyes, body, while moving liquid color on a surface. 

Biff Elrod (b. 1946 in Ft. Worth TX) is a New York City based painter. He has shown widely throughout the United States, at spaces including the Soho Center for the Arts, Yves Arman Gallery, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Ruth Siegel Gallery, Schrieber/Cutler Gallery and MoMA PS1 in New York City. Elrod’s public mural is permanently installed at the PATH Station entrance on Christopher St. in Greenwich Village, New York City since August of 1986. As well, Elrod was commissioned to complete two large works for Port Authority in 1991 at their Harrison, New Jersey repair facility building’s vestibule and lobby. Elrod received his MFA from the University of Hawaii in 1970 after receiving his BFA from the Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. 

Kathryn Lynch was born in Philadelphia and earned her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. She studied with Per Kirkeby and Gregory Amenoff at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Through her intuitive process Lynch elevates what is familiar and moves it into the transcendent. 2025 solo and group exhibitions include the Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial, Karma Gallery and Victoria Munroe in New York City. 

Enrico Riley is the George Frederick Jewett Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. He lives in Norwich, VT. Riley received a BA in Visual Studies from Dartmouth College and an MFA in painting from Yale University School of Art. He is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Rome Prize in Visual Arts, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize in painting. He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions include Jenkins Johnson Projects, Brooklyn, NY, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, The American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA. The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas, The American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH, He is a core creative collaborator for the transdisciplinary Opera, “The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist” that was performed at Lincoln Center For the Arts in the summer of 2024, Riley’s work had been reviewed in Art New England, The New Criterion, The Hudson Review and the New York Times. His work is held in both private and public collections including: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Columbus Museum, and The Hood Museum of Fine Art. He is represented by Jenkins-Johnson Gallery.

Alone with the Moon

Biff Elrod      

Kathryn Lynch

Enrico Riley

Opening Reception Friday, October 10th, 6 - 8 PM

On View October 10 - December 6th 2025

ALONE WITH THE MOON

What about the small game
and the dew falling?

The dry leaves of autumn
magnify the hop 
of the lightest bird.

Why don’t you lie down
to pass the time?
Why not sleep—and never meet?

Let the witnesses
be distant mountains.

Should I get back to the city?
to be with the guilty? 
Or stay with the tree,
unconscious of me?

-Musa McKim Guston, Night Studio