Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Meatyard’s staged images—set in abandoned spaces and often using masks and props—are at once familiar and enigmatic, reflecting the artist’s fascination with the uncanniness of ordinary life.

A meditative study of the mysterious forms of twigs and tree branches, inspired and informed by the artist’s deep study of Zen Buddhism.

Using movement to follow luminescent, broken reflections in water, the artist’s experimental photographs create a free-form effect similar to qualities of Abstract Expressionist paintings.

Reducing groups of human figures to indistinct abstractions, the artist proposes an alternate notion to the traditional photographic portrait.

Photographed in the open landscape, or in simple rural environments, this series evokes the transcendental aspects of nature, and truths that appear beyond the intellect.