NEW YORK, NY.- Maccarone announce the first solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ryan Sullivan. In several large-scale paintings, Sullivan tempers gesture and authorship through an entropic set of actions. The works often invoke topographies, with a strikingly physical surface that undermines simple signification. The cracks, mounds and fissures manifest the electric instability of the painted surface while rendering the precarious state permanent. Sullivan’s thickly applied canvases summon the materiality and alchemy inherent to paint. Laying his canvases horizontally, the artist adds layers of latex, oil, and enamel to create pooled pockets that slowly coagulate into unanticipated leathery skins and weighty flesh. Lifting the half-dry canvas, Sullivan subjects the paint to gravity, concurrently dumping out some under-painting while activating other layers beneath: with this gesture, the artist relinquishes partial a