Face in Clouds, invisible ink
Rochester Art Center, MN
Curated by Zoe Cinel
Sept. 2025- May 2026

Face in Clouds, invisible ink encompasses several recent bodies of work that proceed both literally and figuratively out of a reckoning with invisible illness. The first part of the title describes an emoji that Woodring sends loved ones as shorthand for flare-ups; a simple data point for diagnostically-avoidant experience. Sending the emoji with the “invisible ink” effect shatters it into glimmering pixels, reconsolidating only upon touch. The works in this exhibition engage in similar cycles of rendering and refusal, bobbing at the surface of communicable experience in a post-AI landscape of hyper-classification. Stemming from ritualized visualization practices such as 3D-modeling the contours of illness while under its influence, to drawing all 99 of the “sick” and “tired” works on display at a museum, each work functions as a procedural export from a mediated exchange between an internal affliction and its speculative materialization.

Wide-angle install photograph in a white-walled gallery with concrete floors and a band of tall frosted windows in the corner of the gallery letting in a cool white light. One floor-based work is in fully in frame, flanked by partially visible video and drawing installations.

spot healing (left), Generative Adversarial Nausea (center), Sick and Tired at the Met (right). Install view.

Install photo looking down at a roughly three by three feet square mirror panel floating several inches off the gallery floor. Resting atop the mirror are ten tiny video microprocessor units that each play an image sequence. The tiny video units lean, rest, and face one another in small entanglements ranging from one to three. Each is powered by vine-like black usb cables that snake their way from below the floating mirror to its surface.

Generative Adversarial Nausea. 2020-25. 10 digital image sequences on liquid crystal display + usb-powered microprocessor units. 38 x 38 in. floating mirror panel. Install view.

install detail photo shot from above a three by three foot mirror panel reflecting frosted windows and vaulted gallery ceiling. Resting atop the mirror are several small video displays connected to microprocessors and powered by snaking black usb cables that disappear under the mirror. Each video unit plays an image sequence of morphing portraits, with each subsequent frame arriving via a screen wipe.

Generative Adversarial Nausea. 2020-25. detail.

Generative Adversarial Nausea. 2020-25. Video detail.

Description: Close-up video documentation focusing on three of the ten small video/microprocessor units resting atop a mirror panel. The units, powered by snaking black usb cables, are arranged in a small cluster; stacked and leaning on one another. Each plays a semi-abstracted snapshot sequence–one frame slowly wiping away the previous–of a machine learning experiment combining individual and aggregate portraits of nausea.

Wide-angle install photo of ninety-nine five by seven inch inch ink drawings of different museum object at the Metropolitan Art Museum drawn on handmade paper, along with one coloring book containing copies of each. Hung in a five row, twenty column grid at the corner of the white-walled, concrete floor gallery. The book sits on a small white ledge in the bottom left of the grid, accompanied by one red, yellow and blue colored pencils.

Sick and Tired at the Met. 2025. Installation. 99 ink on paper (5 x 7in) drawings, coloring book published by Irrelevant Press, colored pencils. Install view.

Detail photo of the Sick and Tired at the Met installation. Eighteen of the ninety-nine five by seven contour ink drawings of different "sick" and "tired" objects in the Metropolitan Museum's collection that compose the installation are present in the photo, hung in a grid with five inches of separation between each drawing.

Sick and Tired at the Met. 2025. Install view. detail.

Detail photo of the five by seven inch, clear spiral bound "Sick and Tired at the Met" coloring book resting atop a small white ledge alongside red, blue, yellow colored pencils. Off-white cover with serif font spelling out the book's title and author.

Sick and Tired at the Met. 2025. Published by Irrelevant Press. Install view.

study room studies. 2025. 2-channel video installation. 7 mins. Mac mini, video splitter, two 40″ monitors. Install view.

Video description: Wide-angle documentation of a synced two-channel video installation in one corner of a white-wall, concrete floor gallery. Two floor-resting forty inch monitors lean on their respective catty-corner walls, connected by a Mac mini, video splitter and HDMI cables stationed between them. One screen (left) displays a video feed from an online study site of unoccupied bedroom and offices. The other screen displays in-progress digital paintings of those scenes.

Medium distance install photo of a two-channel video installation in one corner of a white-wall, concrete floor gallery involving two resting forty inch monitors connected by a Mac mini and video splitter stationed between them. Each monitor leans on the wall behind it at a slight angle. The left screen displays a video feed of a bedroom with wood cabinets and bed in the foreground. The right screen displays an in-progress digital painting of the same scene.

study room studies. 2025. 2-channel video installation. 7 mins. Mac mini, Matrox video splitter, two 40″ monitors. Install view.

A wide angle install photo of a two-channel video installation along a long corridor wall with white walls and a concrete floor. Devoid of ceiling light, a cool ambient light from frosted windows sweeps through the corridor. A video still of the artist from the short film is displayed on a wall-mounted sixty inch monitor. The same image is faintly projected at a larger scale onto the wall behind the monitor. A black wire extends outwards and up from the monitor. On the other side of hallway are two black computer chairs and two pairs of black studio headphones. A staircase drenched in turquoise and orange hues is visible towards the center background.

spot healing. 2024. 2-channel synced video installation. 9 minutes. 60″ monitor, short throw projector, headphones, rolling office chairs. Install view.

spot healing. 2024. Install view.

Video description: Wide-angle documentation of a two-channel video installation along a large white wall in a museum corridor. The installation includes a sixty inch wall-mounted monitor displaying a climactic handheld scene in which the camera follows a flickering-faced man as he slowly backpedals towards, and ultimately collapses on a bed. The monitor feed is echoed by a larger, fainter projection of the same video along the same wall.

Detail install photo of a wall-mounted sixty-inch monitor. A still from the short film depicts the artist with headphones and yellow caption text: "And this bonus section will explore full body healing." The same image is faintly projected at a larger scale onto the same wall as the monitor.

spot healing 2024. detail.

Wide angle install photo of a museum a white museum display case with a plexi top backed up against a white wall. Several of the thirty 3D-printed candies from the series are visible as small geodes of color.

Today and Possibly Tomorrow. 2022. 30 3D-printed candies. Hand-written dates. Museum display case. Install view.

Install detail photo taken from above the front left corner of the clear plexi museum display case housing thirty 3D-printed hard candies that sit atop a white wooden surface accompanied by individual hand-written dates marking the date of each candy's modeling. The candies, greatly varying in shape and color, are roughly the volume of large gumballs and the consistency of condensed sugar.

Today and Possibly Tomorrow. 2022. 30 3D-printed candies. Hand-written dates. Museum display case. Detail, install view.

Install detail photo with a shallow depth of field taken from inside a plexi/wood museum display case housing thirty 3D-printed candies that range in shape and color. Each is roughly the size of a large gumball and the consistency of condensed sugar cubes. The candies are in three rows of ten, and each is accompanied by a handwritten date drawn on the white wood surface on which they rest. Three of the thirty edible sculptures are in focus here, and the entire collection is reflected in the plexiglass on all sides.

Today and Possibly Tomorrow. 2022. Detail, install view.

Ryan Woodring

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Sick and Tired at the Met available via Irrelevant Press

Face in Clouds, invisible ink opens at Rochester Art Center

softdatabase.art launch

Exhibitions

Sick and Tired at the Met available via Irrelevant Press

Face in Clouds, invisible ink opens at Rochester Art Center

softdatabase.art launch