Brian Rideout’s oil paintings of domestic interiors blur lines of time and reality

The hypnotising, dream-like interiors depicted in Brian Rideout’s ‘American Collection Paintings’ series might seem unreal, but they are actually drawn from photographs in design books and magazines that Rideout then transforms into immersive and contemplative oil paintings. 

Available to view in a solo exhibition at Patrick Parrish Gallery in New York’s Tribeca neighbourhood (until 21 October 2023), Rideout’s stunning paintings not only showcase rarified interiors filled with highly collectible and storied objects, they infuse a tongue-in-cheek, ‘meta’ twist that accompanies the transference of detail when changing mediums.

Brian Rideout's 'American Collection Paintings' at Patrick Parrish

Rideout has developed his ‘American Collection Paintings’ series for years. The Toronto-based painter makes it a point to maintain and honour the layered history immortalised in the published images, so that his work serves almost as a visual record of design trends and eras, while simultaneously commenting on how highly regarded publications impact the design and art cannon. 

‘There’s something so compelling in the idea of collecting, whether it be books with images of beautiful objects or the beautiful objects themselves. This idea of ownership and aspiration, reference and resource. There’s so much cultural history in these images,’ says Rideout. ‘I like to think about how these images function in relation to painting as historical documentation. There are all these different avenues of history that these images contain – art history, industrial design, interior design, furniture design, even down to the book and plant collections. To me, they are contemporary history paintings, time capsules of taste and taste-making.’

In the solo exhibition at Patrick Parrish Gallery, several of Rideout’s source images are taken from Parrish’s own vast collection of books. ‘I had admired Brian’s work on Instagram, but by the time I reached out he was already working with another gallery in Miami,’ says Parrish, who features in our Wallpaper* USA 300 guide to creative America. ‘Years later when he was a free agent, we started talking in my booth at the NADA show in NYC and brainstormed this idea. It was a great fit, as I have an extensive library of 20th-century historic modern interiors and he had the vision to put these iconic images on canvas, unlocking them from the confines of my bookshelves, freeing them in a way.’

Rideout says, ‘It was a great experience getting to go through Patrick's book collection [and] pull images for the show. His history with his book collection was a golden opportunity for reference material for my work. It turns out we have a very similar eye for what makes a good and important image. I even ended up finding some of the original printings of some images I’ve used in previous American Collection Paintings that I’ve only ever seen online.’

He adds, ‘My obsession is the image – more than the real thing, I love the image. The printed image, the painted image, the document of the thing rather than the thing itself. When I look at something like Patrick’s archive, it’s that mass of images that excites me – it’s like having access to the painting storage at the Met. I love the organisation and categorisation of an archive like that – it provides a real glimpse at a specific part of human history.’

Rideout’s ability to capture the intimacy of these privately owned spaces and collections, and convey that publicly is one of the most compelling aspects of the work. He says, ‘I see three overlapping parallels at work with this show; my practice, where I collect images, overlaps with Parrish’s archive, where he collects books, which overlaps with the collections of art and design objects depicted in my paintings. Through these connections, American Collection Paintings explores the exhibitionism inherent to collections – the need to present them – with the collection existing in an intimate liminal space, public only through images (as with art collectors and images of their homes, or Parrish’s images from books on his blog, or my paintings in the gallery setting).’

Brian Rideout's 'American Collection Paintings' are on view until 21 October 2023

Patrick Parrish Gallery
50 Lispenard St
New York, NY 10013

patrickparrish.com