Disco Ball Vanitas with Grandma's Egg, 2022
Styrene, Paint and Steel
24" x 20" x 45"
Series: Collecting Dust
Opening reception: Saturday, May 7, 1-5pm
Artist in attendance
In Collecting Dust, multi-disciplinary artist Ryan Van Der Hout reimagines traditional still-life Vanitas in a photographic and installation-based solo exhibition that considers our human fascination with our own mortality. Tablescapes arranged with canonical symbols such as skulls or butterflies, are placed among sex toys, Shabbos candles and other personal items. The artist covers these meticulously arranged tableaus with dust and ash, to don the appearance of years of neglect. This black and white series explores the transformation and re-birth that emerged through the pandemic, both personally and universally, along with the accompanying anxiety and grief.
Collecting Dust is a core exhibition for Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival.
Ryan Van Der Hout’s work has been widely featured in publications including The Huffington Post, Vogue Italia, CBC and Reader’s Digest. He has exhibited across Canada, The United Kingdom, and New York, most notably in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Collectors Series, as part of a Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival featured exhibitions, and in The Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward festival. He has created public art for the Toronto Archives, The TTC, Nuit Blanche and Pemberton Developments. Van Der Hout was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Ryerson University.