Alone with the Moon

Biff Elrod      

Kathryn Lynch

Enrico Riley

On View October 10 - December 6th 2025

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.

Coated / Coded

George Rodriguez Richard Saja Thomas Spoerndle

July 17th - September 21st 2025

RUTHANN and CON ALTURA are pleased to present Coated / Coded, a three-person exhibition featuring George Rodriguez, Richard Saja, and Thomas Spoerndle. Working with ceramics, textiles, embroidery and painting, these artists explore cultural narratives, the meaning of craft, and perceptual play. There is joy and mischief afoot as they create their own unique systems and subvert our expectations. 

At RUTHANN, CON ALTURA will feature the highly ornate and large-scale ceramic work of George Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s “El Demonio” and “El Héroe” are part of a series of figures titled, “Los Personajes,” which explores the artist’s history and identity; dreams and fears, and the power of culture. Thomas Spoerndle’s “Frik-Shun” paintings utilize structure and pattern only to disrupt expectations with shifting rhythms, creating visual vibrations and waveforms. Richard Saja creates “interferences” of formal patterns of French toile and tapestries through embroidery,  knot-making, and stitching. 

Coated / Coded is a curatorial collaboration with CON ALTURA and Steve Rivera. CON ALTURA is a new platform dedicated to centering Latinx artists, and our allies, in the contemporary art world. The program takes a worldwide perspective while sharing the voices of contemporary artists who are working with social justice issues and are actively shaping the way we see ourselves and each other.

George Rodriguez creates highly ornamented, figurative ceramic sculptures, often underlined by a connection to the sociopolitical issues the artist explores.

Richard Saja uses antique and vintage fabric designs to create embroidered inaccuracies and unexpected narratives. With a playful take on craft and textile, he joyfully sneaks in unusual details and cheeky winks.

Thomas Spoerndle's paintings emerge through organized systems of form, color and pattern. His work explores layers, slowness, rhythms and musicality. The works are structured but open, and vibrate with subtle disruptions.

The River That Flows Both Ways

Ever Baldwin Erika deVries Clarity Haynes Portia Munson

May 2nd - June 29th 2025

RUTHANN is pleased to present The River That Flows Both Ways, an exhibition featuring the work of Ever Baldwin, Erika deVries, Clarity Haynes and Portia Munson. This is a two-part exhibition that begins at RUTHANN and continues with Marinaro in New York City, opening July 2nd, 2025. 

The concept of flow, an experience of total engagement in an activity, was introduced into psychology by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, based primarily on first-hand accounts in a variety of domains. He found examples in physical activities such as rock climbing, sports (where it is also known as being in the zone), games such as chess, religious rituals, occupational activities such as surgery, and creating in the arts (creative flow). Csikszentmihalyi described the elements of the flow experience this way: The sense of having stepped out of the routines of everyday life into a different reality, clear goals every step of the way, immediate feedback, effortless attention, action and awareness merged, balance between skill and challenge, time distortion, and spontaneity. These properties are cognitive; they are relevant to the study of problem representation, automatic vs. controlled cognitive processes, time perception, and modes of cognition.

The River That Flows Both Ways describes the process by which creative ideas and aesthetics can flow between individual artists to provide mutual inspiration, permission, support, and collaboration. The artists in this exhibition have been engaged in a creative dialogue through studio visits for the past several years. Common themes include working from intuition, feminist, queer and trans approaches to spiritual and activist concerns; magic; collage and found objects/collecting of objects; witchcraft; craft; play; joy; delight; and feminist and LGBTQIA+ resistance.

RUTHANN is pleased to present our inaugural exhibition, Winter Garden. This debut group show reflects our dedication to fostering an inclusive and supportive art community and providing a platform for artists of diverse practice. Winter Garden features seventeen artists based in the Hudson Valley and New York City who work in a range of media including textiles, prints, ceramics, works on paper, paintings and sculptures.

One kind of winter garden we envision is a green house refuge, bursting with colorful or unexpected plants, earthy scents and humidity when the air can be searingly cold outside. The conditions are controlled but the life inside is not; the plants are thriving within their parameters. Another winter garden is seemingly dormant but actually has plenty of activity going on underground; during the hibernatory months plants and fungi are growing stronger roots and storing energy. Below the earth rhizomes consistently expand and networks connect to build larger systems. Within these garden metaphors, artists could be the gardener, the plant itself, or perhaps both depending on the activity. As we collectively face the political, environmental and societal changes around us at this darker time in particular, RUTHANN offers a dynamic exhibition full of color, hope and expansion.

WINTER GARDEN

February 7th - April 20th 2025

Charlotte Becket   Lisa Corinne Davis   Kerry Downey   Ellen Letcher   Kathryn Lynch   Caitlin MacBride   Keisha Prioleau-Martin   Courtney Puckett   Dana Sherwood  Elisa Soliven   Filiz Soyak   Amy Talluto   Julie Torres   Scott Vander Veen  Andy Van Dinh   Alona Weiss   Seldon Yuan  

Images by Jason Andrew