Ryan Decker focuses on the rapid oscillation between the digital and the physical that’s experienced in everyday life, blurring the line between what is real and virtual.

Ryan Decker (b. 1997) was raised in Hendersonville, North Carolina. He received a BS from Appalachian State University in 2019.

Primarily working digitally, Decker is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates animations, furniture, VR experiences, live projections, sculpture, and digital paintings. These works focus on the rapid oscillation between the digital and the physical that’s experienced in everyday life, blurring the line between what is real and virtual.

Decker’s first solo show opened May 2022 at Superhouse Gallery in Manhattan, New York. He has also exhibited with Emma Scully Gallery (NY), Good Naked (NY), Jonald Dudd (NY), Superchief Gallery (FL/NY), and Nth Degree Gallery (NC). Decker lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

These works are a continuation of my 2.5D Trompe-l'œil series titled Raycast. They are composed of intricate digital 3D renders printed on flat aluminum stock arranged in conjunction with sculptural carved and hand-painted elements, blurring the boundary between the real and the digital--the 2D and the 3D.

These lamps take it further by incorporating AI-generated textures with their other found images and painted textures, a push and pull between man and machine that ends with a forceful tug out of the computer and into the real world. These ethereal humanoid lamps can either stand as a shepherd into the next age of artificial intelligence or a portent for our rapidly approaching obsolescence.