Artist Statement
I work under the guise that queerness can be found everywhere. Through rootless histories and ever changing mediums, my artwork resists fixed definitions in form, medium, and identity. Incorporating object making, studio photography, painting, and digital media, I create collages that come in and out of reality as they swim between pixel to pigment, and canvas to paper. These pieces exist in flux, untethered to specific places, mediums, or identities, inviting the viewer to question the solidity of our perceived realities. It’s an exploration into forms that have no grounding, or sense of home, much like my nomadic upbringing.
This practice is a byproduct of my navy brat upbringing and my active engagement with Queer histories. By restoring and creating monuments, developing archives, and memorializing queer narratives through plaques, publications, and parks, I honor the past while fostering spaces for connection and belonging in the present and a hopeful future.
Bio
Ryan Leitner is an artist and writer who currently lives in New Orleans. His art is centralized around the visualization of queerness through the body, its objects, its history, and space. His two dimensional collages explore figurative objects and their environments through photography, painting, digital media, and sculpture. Outside of the studio, Leitner concentrates on queer visibility in public spaces through restoring Queer public monuments, and exploring how Queer history is historicized. He received his M.F.A. From The Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, holds a B.F.A. From Regents American College of London, and was a participant at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in 2023. He has spoken at New Orleans Museum of Art, was a resident at Joan Mitchell Foundation and is currently a collective member at Antenna Gallery.