Secular or Religious: Secular with Religious aspects
Ronald Mann is a self-taught Vietnam veteran artist. His wife Ricki was an amateur painter, and after returning from the war with un-diganosed PTSD, Ron started to make paintings using her leftover materials.
In recent years Ron has created new layers of meaning in his work by photographing projections of slides of his paintings onto other paintings. Ron first created self-portrait photographs using this technique in the early 2000’s (originals now lost):
Slide projection self-portrait photograph; ca 2005
Slide projection self-portrait photograph; ca 2005
Ron has no background or training in art, and remains uninterested in art history or the contemporary artworld. A form of self-therapy, every painting addresses specific memories and emotions that range from combat recollections, the personal traumas of friends and family, to broad historical events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, famine in Africa, or the American Civil War.
