Ryan Cronin (b. 1972) is a contemporary artist represented by Trimper Gallery in Greenwich, CT and Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ. His work hangs at Gallery Red in Mallorca, Spain and has appeared in Gotham, Maniac, and Dear Edward.
Selected exhibitions include the Dorsky Museum, Katonah Museum of Art, Lichtundfire Gallery, and Yard Dog Gallery. For the past ten years, The Cronin Gallery at Water Street Market has served as the home base for his work—presenting exhibitions from three decades of practice while he continues to collaborate with galleries and institutions internationally.
Over that time he has produced more than 200 original paintings, drawings, and public art installations.
Cronin is, first and foremost, a painter.
His oil paintings on board—primarily 40" x 40" in recent years, with earlier work at 48" x 48"—are bold, direct, and built to hold a room. High-gloss finish gives them an almost industrial quality. Visible brushwork reveals the human hand beneath.
He uses color with precision to create contrast and depth. This traces directly to photography: at sixteen, a camera given by his parents taught him to work with spectrums of grayscale to build dimension and mood. That training now governs his palette. The borders framing each work come from the same source—cropping images in the viewfinder translates to how he frames compositions in paint.
Recurring images—text, symbols, figures—guide the eye across the surface the way words guide a reader through a book.
Cronin's works on paper represent a distinct body of work—not studies for paintings, but a parallel practice with its own logic and history.
The drawing practice began in the late 90s and has continued alongside the paintings ever since. His most recent series, The Deliberate Spontaneity of Mark-Making, is oil pastels on Stonehenge paper, 22.5" x 30". Each piece takes shape through what he calls "slow accumulation," building marks over days or weeks until the composition resolves.
"When I create drawings, my hand moves and my mind follows. I begin in a single spot on the paper and allow the composition to expand organically—like when you spill a cup of coffee and it pours out, spreading across the surface with natural momentum."
Where the paintings command a room, the drawings invite close looking—an intimate scale that rewards time spent with the work. A limited number of original drawings are available at any given time.
Some of Cronin's most significant work lives outside the gallery—using art to open conversations and create access.
"Expect A Bike Ahead" places his imagery on roadways to shift how cyclists and motorists see each other—a simple visual intervention with real-world stakes.
"We Are Public Health," created with Ulster County Department of Health, translates public health messaging into visual language that cuts through noise and reaches people where they are.
"The Box: Where Art Meets Medicine" is a collaboration with Go Doc Go that merges art installation with healthcare access—a space where people can gather information on sexual health, mental health, and community resources.
These projects aren't side work. They're extensions of the same practice—drawing upon the audience as part of the act of creating.
The 1990s work was raw—dense, layered, packed with marks and text. By the mid-2000s the paintings had stripped down: graphic, minimal, confident. Clean shapes. Decisive color.
The recent work brings both together. Look at any painting from the last few years and you'll see geometric passages sitting next to loose, scraped-back sections where the back of the brush has cut through wet paint. Two languages in one composition.
The practice keeps expanding. Found objects—painted wood and metal, some over a century old—have become wall sculpture. A current project transforms industrial oil tanks. The format moves between painting, works on paper, and three-dimensional work.
Close to 200 paintings over three decades. More than half have sold.
