NEW YORK, NY.- Jack Shainman Gallery announced its representation of Brooklyn-based artist, Donyel Ivy-Royal. Known for his interdisciplinary practice that synthesizes a diverse range of influences—from post-Impressionism to the Mission School—into work encompassing a wide range of mediums, including painting, photography, sound, drawing and installation, Ivy-Royal brings an exciting and innovative new voice to the gallery’s roster. The gallery will debut his work with a solo exhibition at its Chelsea space in November of 2026.
Guided by process and ritual, Ivy-Royal creates work that explores the act of return to a given subject. His paintings often utilize photography as a kind of preliminary sketch—documenting quotidian scenes that inform his visual language before later returning to these images as points of departure. He constructs his paintings through successive layers of addition and removal, building depth through accumulation while allowing traces of earlier gestures to remain visible. By gradually eliminating the original detail of the photographic image, Ivy-Royal creates a space of liminal meaning within his abstraction, one where subject and effect blur together. His expanded approach to painting has seen him use ordinary and commonplace objects as substrates for his work, transforming the quotidian into aesthetic form, a reflection of his working philosophy to use whatever is at hand. The found objects he incorporates into his work, from cardboard to yard signs and salvaged materials, are used not only as material but as subject as well, with their original context and meaning both retained and reimagined.
Sound is integral to Ivy-Royal’s process. The artist uses recordings made in the studio as a starting point, weaving their essence into the construction of his paintings. Through this translation, images are metabolized and reconfigured, becoming both conceptual frameworks and emotional anchors within his compositions. Residing between the discernible and the indiscernible, the poetic and the practical, Ivy-Royal’s works collapse the distinction between past and present—they press upon the boundary separating perception and knowledge.
Born in Portland, Oregon, Ivy-Royal lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Ceremony, Hide and Seek Gallery, Portland, OR (2024). Recent group exhibitions include GENERAL CONDITIONS, The School, Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook (2025); REGISTERED, White Columns, New York, NY (2024); Everything Must Go, Sitting Room Gallery, New York, NY, (2024) and Black and White, Memorial Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2023). In 2025 Ivy-Royal curated Garvey flag: an art show, at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, New York, NY.
Gallery founder Jack Shainman states, “We are delighted to have Donyel Ivy-Royal join the gallery after showing his work in our most recent exhibition at The School in Kinderhook. Donyel joins a community of artists similarly committed to pioneering new forms and giving expression to contemporary sensibilities. His capacity for blending together abstraction with psychological insight, humor and levity makes him a rare artist and one we are proud to support.”
Ivy-Royal states, "I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with Jack Shainman Gallery. To be able to share my work with them, join such a prestigious roster of artists and work with a staff that is committed to artistic integrity and quality programming is a true honor."
