Ryan Trecartin

Although critics have made various comparisons to other video artists, such as John Waters, Andy Warhol, and Jack Smith (film director), Trecartin has repeatedly stated that fine art was never a major source of inspiration for his work. Randy Kennedy, an art writer for The New York Times, remarked that Trecartin was unaware of the artists he was being compared to when he first heard of them. Per Trecartin: "Contemporary art or artists alone have never been a main catalyst for me to want to make art. I've been more inspired by how language is used—in culture generally, whether in casual conversation or various forms of media—or by music, TV, dance, and movies…I never think about disentangling moments from my cumulative experience of culture that may have influenced me the most… it means more in its blended entirety than it does a series of key experiences or authors."

Trecartin's second major work, and his first feature-length film, I-Be-Area, was finished in 2007 and is in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection. It was greeted with a "joyous critical consensus rarely seen in the art world."

In 2006, the Wall Street Journal included Trecartin in a selection of ten top emerging US artists including Dash Snow, Rosson Crow, Zane Lewis, and Keegan McHargue. More recently, in 2009, Trecartin was the recipient of the inaugural Jack Wolgin International Competition in the Fine Arts, the world's largest juried individual fine art prize, awarded by Tyler School of Art; he received the New Artist of the Year Award at The First Annual Art Awards hosted by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and he was awarded a 2009 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

His work is featured in the Saatchi Gallery collection and has appeared in many museum exhibitions including The Generational: Younger Than Jesus at The New Museum in New York City, Queer Voice at the ICA in Philadelphia, Between Two Deaths at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, and the 2006 Whitney Biennial, as well as in recent solo exhibitions at The Power Plant in Toronto, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.

Trecartin's first major work, A Family Finds Entertainment, was finished his senior year of college and first screened at the college's auditorium. The video was posted on his Friendster page and DVD copies were sold. Although there are several versions of this story, one of the DVDs made it to artist Sue de Beer's hands who then showed it to New Museum curator Rachel Greene. In 2006, Trecartin was the youngest artist to present at the Whitney Biennial.

After graduating from high school, Trecartin "decided to apply to art school because it seemed like a place where people can have creative freedom and easily move between different mediums and cultural discussions." In 2000, Trecartin enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, where he met Lizzie Fitch, who would become his longtime collaborator and creative partner. Fitch appears in many of Trecartin's early videos, such as Wayne's World (2003).

Ryan Trecartin (born 1981) is an American artist and filmmaker currently based in Athens, Ohio. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA in 2004. Trecartin has since lived and worked in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami. His creative partner and long-term collaborator is Lizzie Fitch, an artist that he has been working with since 2000.