Thai Mainhard, Thicker than Air

Thai Mainhard
Thicker than Air
August 2 - September 6, 2025

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 2, 6-8pm

Lowell Ryan Projects is pleased to present Thicker than Air, a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Brazilian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Thai Mainhard. 

In Thicker than Air, Mainhard builds a dynamic, all-over visual expression of plant life and organic forms that thrum with velocity and touch. Using oil paint, oil stick, pastel, and charcoal, she layers form and gesture in spontaneous sequences—marks are dragged, smeared, notated, and slashed. The surface becomes a field of tempo and pressure, where nothing is idle. The work pulses with energy: built up and broken down, its rhythm raw and unrelenting.

Color is both structure and sensation. Violets bloom against fields of moss; cadmium orange and electric blue vibrate side by side. Dayglow yellows crack through shadowy thickets. Petal-like forms twist, fronds curl, and stems streak like electric wires. Some passages are thick and textured, while others hum—not quietly, but with the buzzing urgency of heat, light, and growth. As the eye moves, so does the pulse—color becomes breath, and the line becomes sound.

Mainhard paints from the memory of Brazil—not just its landscape, but its fevered, rhythmic pulse. Her work channels street color, plant lore, ceremonial repetition, and the improvisational joy of pattern. Each canvas is alive with movement and multiplicity. Shapes echo and morph, folding in on themselves like a chant or trance. These aren’t images of nature—they are immersive, ecstatic experiences of it. Enter, and you're caught in the current: a wild, full-volume jungle in bloom.