Dylan Rose Rheingold Unlocks Our Core Memories
Dylan Rose-Rheingold, Better than Ever, 2024. Oil, acrylic, and sumi ink on canvas. Photo Credit: Mico Corvino. Courtesy of Ward Gallery.
A blue-haired ballerina cries on the floor in Dylan Rose Rheingold’s The Blueprint. On a lavender-hued canvas, she hides from onlookers, burying her hands in her face. One of her pointe shoes has been untied and thrown to the side, as the outline of her tutu appears slightly smudged at the edges. The longer I stare at the painting, the more I feel like I should look away. The scene is uncomfortably real, but is also a mere window into another day in girlhood.
Born and raised in New York City, Rheingold’s paintings take inspiration from elementary school art classes as she revisits childhood recollections with paint, glitter glue, and secret strokes of nail polish. On large canvases, we are reminded of leapfrog, smashing piñatas at backyard birthday parties, and the childhood fear of goldfish being ripped from their bowls by a passing bird. Rheingold’s work imbues gestures with nostalgia as blotches of ink and strings of glitter hold the emotional weight of her adolescent scenes. On view at the newly renamed Ward Gallery, led by curators Saam Niami and Garbielle Richardson, The Blueprint is a flashback and a homecoming all at once.
Pictured (left to right): Gabrielle Richardson, Saam Niami, Dylan Rose-Rheingold. Photo credit: Mico Corvino. Courtesy of Ward Gallery.
Richardson said she appreciates Rheingold’s “automatic drawing process” as her paintings subvert conventional movement. Her protagonists dance outside the lines, disrupting scale and focus, as Rheingold reclaims what some artists may consider to be mistakes.
In Follow the Leader, a playground scene unfolds. Resembling a flattened zoetrope, we see children in motion. Figures take over seesaws and merry-go-rounds while an idyllic brood of chicks marches around them. Some pinkies are bigger than pointer fingers. Other areas have been partially erased, while butterflies cruise above. In the upper right corner, a group of overlapping nude figures dance in a circle, reminding Richardson of Boticelli’s Primavera. Rheingold has captured our adolescent meeting place, where children move on a loop. “I think of memory like a flip book,” Richardson says. “When we think about a memory, those things in our mind are stacked up on each other at once.”
For Niami, Rheingold’s mark-making reminded him of Cy Twombly’s intuitive manipulation of oil pastels. Reimagining myths and creating his own, Twombly harnessed the power of gesture, projecting his sensations onto his materials. For Rheingold, it is the myth of girlhood and of a “happy childhood” that shines in her pastel colors and half-erased figures. “Her work feels like a memory that has suddenly come back to you—but you don't totally remember it,” Niami says.
Another piece, Reflection from the Doll House, a favorite of Niami and Richardson, captures the unreliable scale of childhood. In the foreground, a group of girls as tall as the canvas play outside, while a figure and a dog of the same size watch in the background, from inside “the dollhouse.”
Dylan Rose-Rheingold, Reflections from the Dollhouse, 2024. Oil stick, acrylic, pastel, spray paint, and collaged linen on canvas. Photo Credit: Mico Corvino. Courtesy of Ward Gallery.
The Blueprint also marks a new chapter for Ward Gallery, which was recently renamed in honor of Richardson’s late mother, Chanel Ward-Richardson, who supported her daughter’s dream of opening a gallery and supporting emerging artists in NYC. Their new space on Crosby Street is unrestricted, filled with natural light and the sounds of SoHo. Rheingold's work hangs in a half-circle, suspended from the ceiling.
Ward Gallery’s first exhibition, New York…NOW!, at their former home at 25 Allen St., was a New York love story. Through their combined connections and expertise, Niami and Richardson pulled off a successful group show, garnering praise from all corners of the art world overnight. The duo immediately began planning their next act, selecting Rheingold for their first solo show, until the owners of 25 Allen St. told them they were moving forward with another business plan. While Niami and Richardson sought out a new space for their vision, Rose-Rheingold remained committed to Ward Gallery.
Even through several transitions and change-ups, Niami and Richardson’s community-led approach did not cease as both curators fought hard to make The Blueprint a reality. Rheingold compared Ward Gallery to the stories featured in Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women. Assisted by exhibition managers Sascha Lewit and Sosi Mehren, there was a DIY element, a chutzpah to Ward seldom found at larger, commercial galleries. After the exhibition was in motion, Rheingold’s mentor and former professor at SVA, Guggenheim Fellow Gary Stephan, encouraged her to lean into their grassroots approach. “So many people are concerned with brand names and how things sound and look on paper,” Rheingold says. “He said, ‘Real artists and real people who engage with art appreciate artist-run incentives more than anything.’”
The show opened on the last hot day in May, before a delayed spell of spring rain. Despite a broken elevator and a Knicks game, over 500 guests shuffled in and out of the space, embracing the lack of AC to see Rheingold’s paintings.
Installation view of The Blueprint, 2025. Photo credit: Eric Mura. Courtesy of Ward Gallery.
In a neighboring room, Rheingold set up a one-night-only installation, recreating a childhood bedroom. The floor was covered in pink and white fabrics; in the center, a 2000s-era Panasonic TV covered in stickers sat on top of a pillar. The little screen played footage the artist shot on Hi-8 last year at the New York City Ballet. Physically reentering childhood, visitors gathered along the wall to be measured by Richardson, who marked their heights as guests signed their names in marker. Though everyone had stopped growing, an adult nostalgia for play reemerged.
The installation brought Lewit back to her childhood in New York, where you can live forever in a friend’s room by writing your name on the wall. “When you stepped into that room, we were all transported back to being kids,” Lewit says. “There are super nostalgic and heartwarming moments of childhood that we are so quick to forget in the rush to grow up.”
Installation view of The Blueprint, 2025. Photo credit: Eric Mura. Courtesy of Ward Gallery.
Dylan Rose Rheingold: The Blueprint was on view at Ward Gallery from May 16 through May 31, 2025.
