• RYAN HUBBARD
  • Precarity
  • Stillness
  • Ephemeral
  • Portraits
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Bio
Artist Statement
RYAN HUBBARD
Instagram
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Precarity
Stillness
Ephemeral
Portraits
Contact
Shop

My work explores the moods, emotions, and affective undercurrents that shape human experience and embodiment. I am particularly drawn to the emotional and pre-reflective states that underpin and motivate philosophical thought. My background in philosophy acts as a subtle yet persistent backdrop to the content and meaning of my paintings.

Through my work, I aim to evoke a sense of depth, wonder, and mystery. Philosophy relies on conceptual clarity and argumentation, constrained by discursive methodology. Art, however, offers access to the ineffable dimensions of human experience unmediated by discursive thought. My paintings seek to engage with these non-discursive, nonconceptual aspects of experience—the affective textures that constitute our inner landscape.

I'm currently working on three ongoing series: Precarity, Ephemeral, and Stillness

Precarity explores the fundamental anxiety and vulnerability inherent in being alive. Each painting captures a moment of poised tension—a figure caught in a seemingly dangerous or unstable position, evoking the sensation of time suspended just before an event unfolds. By drawing out the beauty within states of uncertainty, the series invites the viewer to reflect on how we might accept the inherent anxiety of being alive.

In contrast, Stillness meditates on slowness, presence, and mindfulness. These works evoke feelings of calm, rest, and inwardness, serving as a foil to the moods of Precarity. Together, the two series form a kind of emotional dialectic, expressing the rhythmic oscillation between tension and release, clenching and relaxing—a dynamic at the core of human experience.

The most recent series, Ephemeral, sublates the previous two. Here, the figures are not frozen in a moment of suspense nor grounded in tranquil rest, but appear to dissolve or merge with the surrounding atmosphere. These works evoke a sense of transience, wonder, and mystery, capturing the mutable, intangible dimensions of embodied experience.