Ryan Riddington & Ralph Dunn: I want to be your Dog

I want to be your Dog

The two person show of Ralph Dunn and Ryan Riddington falls within the international Pride month and each of the artist explores their sexuality within their work in very different but com¬plimentary ways.

Both artists’ work is conceptually based and their works are not figurative in an obvious way, the viewer needs to investigate the pieces to see their queerness, in both senses of these works.

Dunn presents three works including Doormat, which welcomes the viewer into the MOCA space. It is as its name suggests a seemingly ordinary doormat made from coconut fibre as can be found at homes across the country. However instead of saying – Welcome – it suggests to the viewer a quick oral sex encounter by someone who wants to be treated as a doormat. Similar sexual want ads can be found on the internet and there are many gay sites where interested parties can meet. To the immediate right Dunn’s new work Aroma is on the inside of the gallery’s external glass frontage. There are three rows of words like Rave, Deep and Bang. Many viewers might not have any idea of how these words work as a totality, it could be a concrete poem or as is the case the names of various ‘Popper’ brands. Amyl Nitrate is a liquid sniffed by many who wish to engage in anal sex as it is a muscle relaxant. The words are reflected in Dunn’s So Messed Up a mirror he has hand etched into a plea to perhaps a lover or perhaps a longing for a certain encounter. The works reflect and are in dialogue with each other as well as Riddington’s works.

Riddington has made a series of Cloaca works which are both in two and three dimensions. The three brown sculptural objects are mounted on the gallery walls and are in the shape of triangles or a square. Each object is made up of a group of tennis and ping pong balls covered with many layers of paint. At first view the game balls are hard to distinguish as such and appear more like atoms and protons bound into some new form of element not yet found on the Periodic table. Perhaps they are the molecules of sex and desire, or even the opening of the digestive tract as found in mammals. The word comes from the Latin to clean or drain and is often used in conjunc¬tion with or is a term for a sewer. In the works that are photographic we see the artist’s hand supporting or entering the works and the tension between the two and three dimensional ver¬sions jumps out at the viewer. Perhaps they too can touch these seductive objects or maybe they are repulsed at the idea. But it will cross their minds. He also presents two tiny acrylic paintings on toilet paper called Clags. Each Clag explores the geometry of the design on the paper which on a much smaller scale looks like his sculptural works. His choice of colour (brown and a rusty red) cannot but be read as references to bodily fluids and solids and return us to our physical selves.

Both artists ask us what it is to be a human, what are our desires and how is it that some are sanctioned and others are glorified. Who is to say what pleasure is or how it might be found? The looking glass is always the reverse of the true picture of ourselves as others see us, the artists’ works suggest we can never really know our selves, our desires, or where they originate, only that we must embrace them.