Donyel Ivy-Royal

Over the past decade, Donyel Ivy-Royal (b. 1993 in Portland, OR; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) has developed a distinct visual language that moves fluidly between abstraction and figuration. Working across painting, photography, sound, drawing, and installation, his practice is guided by process, repetition, and ritual. His paintings often utilize photography as sketch–documenting quotidian scenes that inform his visual language, he later returns to these images as points of departure. The artist utilizes layering, both of memories and of mark making, to transforms photographic references into compositions that hover between the discernable and the indiscernible, the poetic and the everyday.

This commitment to exploring multitudes is central to Ivy-Royal’s practice. Influenced by early experiences with graffiti, he approaches painting as an additive and subtractive process, building depth through accumulation while allowing traces of earlier gestures to remain visible. This sensibility extends to the artist’s choice of materials; Ivy-Royal frequently paints on found and unconventional surfaces such as cardboard, yard signs, and salvaged materials, embracing a philosophy of working on, and with, whatever is at hand.

Sound is integral to Ivy-Royal’s process; the artist uses recordings made in the studio as a starting point to painting, 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.

Floating between memory and the present, Ivy-Royal’s work invites viewers into the liminal space where perception, imagination, and lived experience converge. His paintings feel at once intimate and expansive, rooted in personal history while remaining open, resonant, and widely accessible.

The artist's debut solo exhibition will open November 2026 in the gallery's Chelsea location. 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.