RALPH PUGAY
Hang in There
November 1 – December 31, 2020
Online exclusive exhibition on UPFOR Online Viewing Rooms
THE WORK
Are you serious? This question underlies most viewers’ initial reactions to Ralph Pugay’s artworks. Pugay’s work is mordantly hilarious, absurd(int) and employs cartoon-like aesthetics, flying in the fact of the amour proper of contemporary art. Along with these qualities, however, the artist poses deep questions. His work investigates complex phenomena through entry points that are ambiguous and open-ended. The artist cares to whether we think his work is serious. He cares only that we find in it soul, relief and healing.
This exhibition draws from two bodies of work: Pugay’s After Swimming drawings, a large body of daily practice drawings created during his time at the Rauschenberg Residency at Captiva, Florida and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2018; and his recent Cat Posters, a loving gloss on, and contemporary repsonse to, the well-known 1971 motivational posters by Victor Baldwin. Baldwin's images depicted cats (typically Siamese) hanging on branches with the phrase, "Hang in There, Baby."
“Despite how corny the idea for the poster may be, it maintains a timeliness and a timelessness...In the past it was maybe easier to envision what a good future looks like. Now it may feel like we don't know what we're hanging in there for." – Ralph Pugay
Virtually everyone with exposure to US popular culture remembers these posters in their original instantiation or in various reprises over the decades. Baldwin was a prominent Beverly Hills portrait photographer, whose subjects included celebrities and (Baldwin’s true interest) animals. The poster image first appeared in a children's book co-authored with his wife Jeanne. The book led to great demand from fans, many of whom wrote to the Baldwins, describing how important the image had been in helping them through hardships. Baldwin added the catchphrase and turned the idea into posters. The image and phrase together captured the zeitgeist, offering (as does Pugay's work today) a combination of humor with quiet acknowledgement that all may not necessarily feel okay.
THE ARTIST
Ralph Pugay holds an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University and is a residency graduate from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Other residencies include the Rauschenberg Foundation at Captiva Island and the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans. Pugay’s awards include a Ford Family Foundation Rauschenberg Fellowship, Betty Bowen Award from the Seattle Art Museum, Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship and Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award. Notable solo exhibitions were held at the Seattle Art Museum, Upfor, Vox Populi and FAB Gallery (Richmond, VA), among others. In addition to his studio practice, Pugay is coordinator of the MFA in Contemporary Art Practice (Studio Concentration), Portland State University.