Ian Ingram Inaugurates 101/Exhibit’s New West Hollywood Gallery

To celebrate the opening of a West Hollywood space, 101/EXHIBIT has filled its new gallery on La Peer Drive with Ian Ingram’s engulfing drawings and paintings. The inaugural exhibition, “Ash and Oil,” combines work from three of Ingram’s series. It takes its name from  the media with which he works—charcoal, graphite, and oil paint—to make the precisely executed, psychologically intense drawings and paintings for which he is known.

Works from three different series: Evidence (2014–16), Lost on the Pulpit (2013), and Ignoring (2012) comprise “Ash and Oil.” For Ignoring and Lost on the Pulpit, two older series included in this show, Ingram was working with charcoal and graphite on paper. Yet in the more recent “Evidence” series, he returns to working in oils—a medium he has not used in over a decade. Continuous throughout all three series is the intentionally overwhelming scale at which the artist works, as well as the fact that he is the subject of almost every composition. Since 2009, he has focused intently on self-portraiture, producing representations in which he meticulously captures every physical detail of his face, or occasionally another isolated part of his body.

Mirrors—especially those that magnify—are among Ingram’s most important tools. He positions them in front of his paper and board, and scrutinizes his features in them as he builds up detailed images of his face or body. These begin sketchily, with sweeping contours, areas of light and shadow, and hatched lines. Gradually, he refines these initial marks, working slowly and methodically, to shape them into a more exacting version of his likeness. His self-portraits range from the semi-expressive to the Hyperrealist, and reveal every furrow, line, and texture of his face—often in unflattering detail.