Ratio 3 is pleased to announce Character Study, a group exhibition featuring recent and historical photographic works from six artists. For this exhibition, each artist has produced or revisited a series of images focusing on a single human subject.
Beginning in the early 1970s, Nobuyoshi Araki’s Sentimental Journey spans two decades, intimately documenting his relationship with his first wife.
Sam Contis debuts After Practice (Maryanne), a set of serialized portraits of a teenage athlete on a high school girls’ cross country team; the series forms part of a larger, ongoing project that explores time, labor, landscape, and identity.
Through individual images, illustrations, and photographic collages, Jim Goldberg’s Ruby Every Fall builds a complex portrait of the artist's daughter through childhood and adolescence.
Sally Mann’s celebrated series, Proud Flesh, features the artist’s husband of forty-nine years posing for Mann’s characteristically vulnerable, and emotionally-charged nude studies.
Ryan McGinley’s installation of unframed photographs incorporates intimate portraits and candid images, creating an immersive, celebratory montage of the artist’s relationship with his boyfriend.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya presents a concise set of portraits of a friend and recurring subject in his work; taken five and seven years apart, these images typify Sepuya’s central focus on portraiture, studio photography, and the ongoing relationship between artist and subject.
Whether captured at brief intervals, or across several decades, each of the photographic series in Character Study presents an intimate records of relationships between family, friends, lovers, and strangers. Taken together, Character Study offers an expanded notion of the classic artist-muse relationship.

Opening reception: Friday, June 28, 6 – 8PM

mpefm USA art press release