Image courtesy of Mean Street Gallery
At Cincinnati’s Mean Street Gallery, Ryan Duggan has built a world inspired by the eccentric towns beyond the interstates of America with a collection of acrylic painting and prints on canvas and wood panel called Hamburger Highway.
“For Hamburger Highway I settled my gaze on a fictional but familiar place, just off the highway in one of those enchanting parts of America that haven’t been completely homogenized,” reads the artist statement for Duggan’s exhibition, which opened September 13 at Over-the-Rhine’s Mean Street Gallery.
Image courtesy of Mean Street Gallery
Duggan is a Chicago-based illustrator and printer who has done poster work for the likes of Billy Strings, Wilco, Childish Gambino, Primus, John Prine, and others, not to mention an array of illustrative and design work for countless businesses and publications. His fake advertisements and evangelical PSAs such as the “Pray for America” painting evoke blurry memories of billboards on car rides, shop signs, or vintage magazine ads. A canvas banner advertising “Wild Bill’s Mouse House” is complemented by a set of 12 square panels done in acrylic and ink, showing Wild Bill’s mice in all their glory, each with its own personality communicated through color and pose.
Duggan’s work is playful and nostalgic; memorable and simplistic. Creating fictional advertisements feels like the natural course of action for someone who’s commissioned to create real ones, but Duggan’s work, including his designs for businesses and musicians, trades the sanitary, milquetoast aesthetics of modern design for something much warmer and alive.
Image courtesy of Mean Street Gallery
Mean Street Gallery opened in May 2023 and is curated by Alexander Giehl, Jamie Morrison, Blake Lipper, and Drew Christman. Giehl and Lipper are alumni of the Cincinnati Art Academy. The team is devoted to “demystifying” the oft-pretentious gallery scene and building community by displaying work from local and out-of-town artists in tandem.
The recurring series Meaner Pastures is an experimental exhibition where anyone can bring a piece to the gallery to be installed over the course of the evening. It has allowed amateur and professional artists alike the opportunity to connect and see their work in a gallery setting.
Image courtesy of Mean Street Gallery
Hamburger Highway is up until September 29. Mean Street is open to the public from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, and by appointment on Monday through Friday. Its next show opens on October 4 at 5 p.m. and is a group photography exhibition called Garage Sale, curated by Jon Medina, another CAA alum.
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