Kat Ryals first welcomed me into her home with open and glitter littered arms. Shiny scraps of fabric, half-completed art projects, power tools, hot glue guns, and taxidermied animals are the building blocks of this artist’s interior life. I was suddenly at the epicenter of a fever dream decked in gold fringe – I couldn’t be more excited to see more.

Raised in suburban Arkansas and then Cajun Louisiana, Ryals’ artistic practice was shaped by time spent rummaging through thrift stores, daydreaming in ornate Catholic churches, and wandering through forests, swamps, and gardens on her family’s farm. Along the way, she began looking closely at the world and collecting those small things which others might ignore. Small things like the gold trim of a priest’s robes, or baby frogs lost in the bayou, or even discarded playing dice.

Kat takes me downstairs to her studio where she is hard at work creating her Rugs series. These hand-made collages hang upright on her studio wall being held together by pins and hot glue. It’s more delicate than I had imagined, re-affirming the sense that these works of art are ephemeral and representative of a moment in time.

In the past, horror vacui, or the fear of emptiness, was often employed in art and was considered sacred and highly regarded. Today, minimalism represents refinement and luxury while maximalism is unrefined and cheap. Ryals’ Rugs series highlights the casino floor, the detrital glory of belongings lost, and gambling paraphernalia hidden. The selection of collage materials is informed by the classic iconography of Las Vegas, such as spas, pools, steakhouses, buffets, hotel lobbies, casino floors, and wedding chapels. Ryals incorporates poker chips, playing cards, bra straps, peacock feathers and much more into the shape of a seventeenth century Savonnerie French rug pattern. The resulting image is photographed with a high-resolution camera and printed mechanically onto a velvet rug. What many would consider trash, is transformed to create the illusion of luxury. The rugs reference what is, in today’s fast fashion world, considered unattainable, the opulence of a hand-crafted, hand-woven textile wall hanging or rug.

As I’m looking at the collage she has mounted to the wall, Kat turns to ask: Have you seen the movie Showgirls?”

Paul Verhoeven’s iconic film is a widely contested masterpiece of shit, narrating the kitsch of the American dream. When it was released in 1995, the film was considered a flop. It wasn’t until Queer culture adopted the film as bad enough to be good, that the movie crossed over into being a cult classic. Told from the perspective of a wannabe ‘Vegas Showgirl’ – Nomi Malone is looking for fame and rhinestone-studded fortune and she won’t stop until she has it! She and the other dancers are shallow, scandalously thin, and overtly homo-erotic. The dancing is oddly wild, the dialogue is deceptively vapid, and the acting is over-the-top – a perfect storm of terrible turned fabulous.

The film is just one of the many inspirations behind Showroom Dynasty, on view at 5-50 Gallery September 6 – October 19. Curated by Lauren Hirshfield, the show invites viewers to engage with Ryals’ probing exploration of value, desire, materiality, and cultural hierarchy. What has arisen out of American post-capitalism is an aesthetic most notably manifest along the neon streets of Las Vegas. There, as Dave Hickey writes in his work, Air Guitar, is where culture resides – places designed to keep consumers hopelessly spending under the illusion of attaining or becoming something more. Inspired by the gold filigree and ornate environments of a bygone era when luxury was a privilege reserved for a select few, Vegas is a mimicry of opulence. In Norman Klein’s The Vatican to Vegas, she puts into conversation these ideas of Baroque ornate aesthetic and the kitsch of Vegas interiors. Both spaces are environments designed to manipulate perception and create a specific emotional response, whether in grand Baroque palaces or the modern casino floor. Caesar’s Palace, for example, is a refuge for those hard-working Americans who put their lives in the hands of the American Dream in the hopes of one day ‘making it big’. For a meager sum, the same American can live like a king for a day, if only he doesn’t look too closely.

Through sculpture, lens-based work, textile art, and site-specific installations, she emulates material culture and organic artifacts. Often replicating objects that symbolize high status, like large and ornate tapestries or rugs, garments, and houseplants. She directly engages with perceptions of authenticity, taste and hierarchy. Her practice examines how cultural currencies shape personal desire, reinforcing systems of social and environmental disparity.

There is a lot to know about Kat Ryals, a woman raised in Arkansas with Cajun roots, a love for Las Vegas, and now a settled veteran of the art world living in Brooklyn. While talking to Kat about her work, she references a wide range of visual influences, e.g., the palatial interiors of eighteenth-century Europe, the swamps of Louisiana, her own wedding in Las Vegas. The common thread, however, comes from Kat’s early interest in anthropology, and trying to find the locus of hope, desire, and value. Ryals mentions that one of her favorites in her Rugs series is In This World You’re a God, because it juxtaposes Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and the swamp creatures from her days in Acadiana. The frogs featured in this rug’s design, indeed refer to Kat’s time in Acadiana, but also the French delicacy ‘cuisses de grenouilles’ or ‘Frogs Legs’. A food considered for the lower class in the American South, is a delicacy for the French ruling class. Symbols of status and luxury are only ever held in the eye of the beholder.

As I’m reluctantly leaving, Kat hands me stacks of books and smaller print outs for me to fumble through and gain a better understanding of her new series. I vow to re-watch Showgirls in the very near future and tell her all about it. She promises I’ll be able to look after her small Pomeranian dog, Ethel sometime very soon. I can tell that as I’m saying goodbye to her, Kat is already thinking about the composition of the collage downstairs and whether to include those pieces of faux fur or that pink silk…. just as Las Vegas is a place that can only ever play itself, so too Kat Ryals can only ever play herself.

This Spring, multidisciplinary artist Evan Paul English curates a group exhibition Inner Excess at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society (Beacon, NY). English’s work explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways in which capitalist consumerism shapes our perceptions of all three. Each artist in this exhibition brings a unique perspective to these themes, reflecting personal ideologies that are often shaped by shared histories and environments. Together, their works form a dialogue that questions value, visibility, and the blurred boundaries between the material and metaphysical realms.

Gracelee Lawrence (she/they) investigates the fragmented, gendered nature of the body by merging their own form with edible plants through 3D scanning and software manipulation. Their sculptures explore the ecological and ethical complexities of bioplastics, offering a meditation on the intersections of technology, consumption, and corporeality.

Similarly engaging with historical and material narratives, Colleen Rae Smiley (she/her) presents a ceremonial apron inspired by the protest garments of Suffragettes. Her work highlights the significance of the table on which the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1848—also later used for séances—suggesting the convergence of activism, spirituality, and the enduring struggle for visibility and agency.

Jared Freschman (he/him) turns inward, illustrating in colored pencil a personal ritual of drawing tarot cards upon waking. The recurring presence of The Empress—a symbol of divine femininity, creativity, and sensory awareness—evokes a spiritual practice rooted in self-discovery and intuitive connection.

Kat Ryals (she/her) interrogates notions of luxury, craft, and mass production by blending the aesthetics of 18th-century European Savonnerie rugs with modern banquet carpets. Her hand-built collages, later printed onto velvet rugs using consumer-level technology, lure viewers with opulent imagery only to reveal compositions of discarded, artificial, and dead materials. This juxtaposition challenges our perceptions of value, questioning the seductive yet deceptive nature of commercial aesthetics.

Sam Reeder (he/him) harnesses the allure of neon to explore digital communication and sexual desire. His neon sculptures expose the tension between visibility and secrecy, using the medium’s provocative presence to bring private longing into public space, forcing a confrontation with what is often hidden from view.

Emma Jackson (she/her) employs painting as a portal to an alternate realm accessed through transcendental meditation. Communicating with a non-human entity, she translates their world into visual form, depicting an alien history marked by cultural and environmental crises that eerily mirror our own. Her work serves as both a warning and an invitation to reflect on our collective trajectory.

Together, these artists engage with the intersections of embodiment, ritual, materiality, and desire, revealing the ways in which personal and collective histories shape our understanding of self and society. Through their varied practices, Inner Excess challenges the boundaries between the physical and the spiritual, the artificial and the organic, the hidden and the seen — asking us to reconsider what we consume, what we value, and what we choose to reveal.

To gain more understanding of the exhibition, the author and Distortion Society Gallery Director interviewed curator Evan Paul English on April 8 this year. Here is an edited version of their discussion.

MS:  Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practices?

EPE: Yes! I’m a tattooer and a painter. I explore themes of domesticity, growing up queer in America is what I always put in my artist statement. As a tattooer, I use a lot of imagery found in vintage textiles, and I translate them into tattoos, which I view as an act of reclamation.

Having grown up in Idaho surrounded by these types of domestic art forms, I’m kind of reusing them in different ways, whether it’s through my gallery work, creating paintings inspired by those same patterns, or making tattoos from the same source imagery. I’m very invested in themes of Americana and what that looks like when you manipulate it and rewrite the narrative around what those images represent.

MS: You know I’m a huge fan of your work, thanks for sharing. In the curatorial statement for Inner Excess, you mention that your work, and the work in this show, explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways capitalist consumerism shape our perceptions of all three. Can you speak a little about how that plays out in your own work, and why you chose the work that you did for this show?

EPE: Yeah, so as I said, I think tattooing can be a form of reclamation; getting a tattoo can be an act of transformation and a form of reclaiming your own body. So, that to me is a very spiritual act. I think art making in general is very spiritual; making art feels like a form of spellcasting.

You’re creating something new that you’ve never seen before that you want to put out into the world. And it sort of has this ripple effect through your community and potentially even larger than that. So, my art practice is very personal and it’s a way of creating a story about myself that I’m in control of. It’s like tattooing and seeing how my body has changed through getting tattoos and liking the way I look – feeling strong in my body. It’s in essence the same process through painting.

MS: I love that! One of the most compelling aspects of this show is the varied materials and processes each artist presents: we have a 3D printed mobile, a 7 foot figurative neon wall sculpture, a suffragette-era textile banner, an 18th-century inspired rug, a transcendental painting and two vibrant color pencil drawings. There is palpable tension between themes – physical vs spiritual, artificial vs organic – and how the materials exist near one another – hand-drawn vs mechanical, soft textiles vs neon light. Can you speak a bit about this?

EPE: I was interested in the different artists work because they were so varied, but they had a similar thematic undertone. I feel like they all work with these concepts of spirituality in the body and are working in these sorts of consumer level art mediums like colored pencil, for example, or these 3D printed plastic pieces. Neon is something that we interact with on a daily basis, just in a different context. So, in relationship to consumerism, that was how I selected the works for the show.

There’s also an inwardness to all of these – they all have a tenderness and a reflectiveness. That appealed to me, or I guess I resonated with me and my own practice. So, whether they’re illustrated bodies or a spiritual practice like tarot card reading or like in Colleen’s work, the ceremonial apron that has an image of a table where seances were performed, there’s different spiritual elements in each of them. I think even neon could relate to spirituality, like light as a medium. And when I think of light as a medium, I think of stained glass in a church or the presence of light, of color. Light is just very alluring and provocative.

There’s tension between the works and different things being explored, but they’re all very colorful and they’re all really fun, too, which I think ties back into this idea of consumerism, right? Like, why are we attracted to certain things? Is it the materiality? Is it the colors? What about something makes us want to have it and feel like we need to have it? So that was something I’ve been thinking about.

And then the title of the show, which I wanted to touch on, is Inner Excess. I think we all, as Americans especially, consume a lot of information every day through our phones. Everywhere we look, there’s an advertisement. And as a result, I feel like that excess excessiveness on the exterior, on the outward, we consume it, and it kind of becomes our inner worlds, and it changes the way we think about ourselves and things. We’re downloading all this information and then we’re making art, you know, as artists, and it’s like, what do we choose to make and why? And how has the consumerism outside of us shaped the way we think about ourselves and the art we make and what we want to do with our lives?

So, that was sort of the idea. And I think as queer people too, just to speak for myself, I don’t feel like a church is somewhere I can necessarily access my spirituality. The place that I do is when I’m alone or looking inward.

MS: I also access my spirituality by looking inward. This all really resonates with me! Do you find that after working on this show these themes have infiltrated your personal work in a new way?

EPE: Yeah, I’m interested in working in more mediums – seeing people who are very good at what they do is inspiring! Haha, but seriously I think it makes me recommitted to the themes that I’m interested in. When I was curating the show, I just felt so strongly about having each of these artists work here. And that’s a process of self-investigation too: why am I so drawn to this? What does that say about myself and where I’m at in my life right now?

MS: Ah, good point! What do you hope people take away from the show?

EPE: I hope that people have a little bit of pleasure from the show, a little bit of escapism. I think because the work is so colorful and vibrant and fun to look at, I hope that there’s joy. With art shows, it’s like a big party, you’re seeing a lot of your friends and sharing art and sharing passion with each other. I think that the importance of art right now is finding community and pals to share a little joy with.

Inner Excess will be on view at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY through June 8, 2025. The gallery is in the front and is free and open to the public.

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