Ryan Anthony Bulis
Originally part of The Exhibition Convergence organized by Art organization A Ship in the Woods on site at the San Diego National Park Cabrillo National Monument. Three monuments honoring the Mararch butterfly as a symbol for travel, exploration, and imagration.
Mariposa en un Viaje
Steel, enamal
2'x2'x4'
2015
Originally installed in the LA Based Gallery TSA LA, Four Legged Animal is an interactive sculpture that plays with the human figure. Both in the anatomical relationship between furniture and the human body but also in the awkward way the audience interacted with this absurd piece of furniture.
Four Legged Animal
Steel, Upholstery Fabric, Maple, Faux Fur, Leather, Sheep Skin
3.5'x6.5'x3'
2015
The Almosts Figures were originally made as part of the Almosts Show exhibited at LA based Gallery TSA LA. The Almosts, in the title of the show, refers to Helen MacMurchy's 1920 study The Almosts: A Study of the Feeble-Minded. This study was one of many pseudo-scientific documents that justified the pervasive eugenic philosophies of the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The subjects in this study were people suffering from mental illnesses and other mental and social ailments; seen by many in the scientific community as "almost" human. This show plays with abstraction, personification and degenerate forms as a way to challenge the Almosts study's assumptions that still linger in attitudes and culture today. The figures were painted of willing gallery visitors made on the spot as a take away.
Almosts Painted Figures
Enamel Paint, O Scale Figures
O scale
2015
This interactive sculpture was part of the Exhibition Out of the Great wide Open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. This work was literally and figuratively about connections. Connecting the individual wooden pieces together to build and invent as an individual while also as a participant in a larger shared authorship between the Artist and the other participating museum guests. Bridge A to B allows for a pause in ones day. One simply needs to kneel down, dig through the trough of wooden objects and find a connection.
Bridge A to B
Wood, Carpeting
15'x5'x height variable
2015
Garden Variety is an ongoing project that includes Installation, Performance, Photography, Statuary, Imitation Foliage and Living Botanical Sculptures. The aim of this body of work is to flush out the Environmental, Architectural and Imaginary lines between the State of Nature and Perceived Civility.
Garden Variety
Garden Figures, Faux Plants, Sand, Pine
4'x4'x6'
2013
Clay and starch smashed together to render hideous potato caricatures based on the practice of physiognomy and the depiction of the Irish people during the Irish potato famine as primative and
subhuman.
Potatoheads
Digital Prints
2'x2'
2013
Piñata Head
Cardborad, Tissue Paper
1.5'x1.5'x2'
2012
Performance executed in 2012 for the UCSB Graduate Open studios. There was little instruction for the audience. Only the language of the piñata and a waiting body.
Each participant that felt the need to participate took up the stick and hit the piñata under their own free will. It was only after a participant had made contact with the head that there was potential for an internal conflict between the act and any kind pre-existing moral code.
Play Things Figures
Caste Bronze and Aluminium
4"x2"x7"
2011
Play thing figures are a series of Bronze sculptures caste as part of a collaborative effort of Brian and Ryan. Wax molds were made from a selection of generic toys and geometric shapes. The wax positives were cut up taken apart and reassembled to create the mutated figures represented above.
Bubble Boy Ping Pong
Polyvinyl Fabric, Ping Pong Balls, Wood, Net, Acrylic Paint
14'x6'x9'
2011
Performance executed in 2010 for the Here Not There Performance Exhibit, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. For three hours Brian and Ryan faced-off in a ping-pong challenge.
The two men and their ping-pong table were enclosed in a freestanding cylindrical bubble being pumped full of air. Brian and Ryan fought against cross air currents being forced into the bubble and interfering with normal ping-pong play. At the end of the show, Ryan surfaced as the victor.
Crosswalk-A-Thon
Digital Prints
30"x40"
2009
Performance executed in 2009 on streets of downtown San Diego. Obeying the walk signals, the artists walked the four corners at Market and Fourth Street from dawn until dusk. Brian wore a pristine pair of white walking shoes while Ryan walked barefoot.
Each complete lap was marked. At each hour, the walkers stopped to have the bottom of their shoes and feet photo-documented. By dusk, they completed 83 laps.
Basketball Backpacks
Performance
Dimensions Variable
2007
Performance executed in 2006 as part of Irrational Exhibits V at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica. During this performance, the artists played a modified game of basketball in which each opponent had to shoot at the other’s basketball backpack to score. The artifact from the performance is a series of small Polaroid images that depict the winner and loser of each round.
China Bronze Ingots
45lbs of Caste Bronze
Dimensions Variable
2006
In the early 2000's the price of copper was increasing due to the demand from China's unprecedented industrial growth. Consisting of 90 percent copper, Bronze too began to increase in cost. China Bronze Ingots was a conceptual attempt to capitalize on the increasing valuation of bronze. Each ingot was caste from a toy made in china. By buying and investing the toy in bronze I was simultaneously participating in the market as a consumer of Chinese goods while collecting the interest in the value of metal that accrued as the industrial growing period continued to climb.
Caste Iron Skull
Caste Iron
9"x7"x8"
2005
This rusted hunk of iron was the product of a San Diego State University Iron Pour that was an annual event until 2008. The Styrofoam evacuation process starts with a Styrofoam positive that is then packed in a resin bonded sand mold. The hot metal is poured into the mold replacing the light foam with dense metal. The skull and rust merge to be a memento mori of death and industry as it relates to materials, decay, and the residence of foam to decomposition.