Homeward Bound and the Triumphant Return of Zzz...Stardust 93-39

Ryan Foerster | Solo Exhibition

Presented by FIERMAN

February 2nd - March 5th

i think i come up my best ideas when i walk ziggy at night. she excitedly pulls me to nearly every thing she smells, then decides whether or not to pee on it, more likely to pee on it than not. i wonder what she is thinking, why she is so driven to keep doing it. it seems she could go walking forever. she also gets excited for rats and knows to check garbage bags and every sewer. she is looking for someone or something and it’s interesting to see how she pieces that together in her head and decides to leave her mark as well. i was thinking it’s funny how we go about our lives or at least as artists, “smelling things,” as it were—deciding if you want to interact with something, leave your mark or cover up someone else’s scent.

i don’t know how long it was before i thought i should take a video of ziggy walking around. we walked all the way to coney island the night i took the video in the show. i remember looking up at the old parachute drop ride, now just lit up with many different color lights, so filmed that for a second as well, before we made our way back home. a lot of my art practice takes place at home or the idea home. i make domestic art from my life and surroundings. seems simple. i try to document my experiences as they come to me, mostly though photography and sculpture. each work comes from maybe a similar scenario as walking ziggy at night. i attempt to make things from a number of different events and experiences in my life, pulling and processing things from my daily life and translating them into this visual language.

homeward bound was a favorite story as kid. and i guess as i make work i'm trying to get home—or the idea of home, which changes over time. i expand on this idea or that within my practice which helps me sort out how i see things and get closer to the idea of home.

i lived in this space briefly a number of years ago. it was also a gallery then (127) and i worked there on weekends so that was the only time i had to put my stuff in the back. using this as starting point just lead me to think about this idea of home and shelter. both up close, like walking the dog, photographing my environment, making objects from my surroundings—and far away, like planets and solar systems. and how we end up where we are. and how things circle back or overlap, like composting, or the movie groundhog day.