If an early 20th century painting by Arthur Dove had a love child with an early 21st century emoji, it might look like one of Ryan Callis’ seven new paintings at Edward Cella Art & Architecture.

Dove’s DNA can be seen in the compositional sophistication Ryan brings to his paintings, mixing representational elements with geometric shapes, both simple and fanciful. Part of paintings fall into place with their neighbors while never feeling cramped or crowded.

The muscular colors and slippery tonal shifts Dove (1880-1946) deployed to construct his dynamic landscapes lives on in the visual electricity of Ryan’s idiosyncratic palette, whose funky juxtapositions of organic and unnatural tints are a bit more jittery yet cut from the same cloth.

“Surf Art” is often an incorrect label to hang on the work of many artists whose life as a surfer might sometimes influence their work. Ryan Callis is a surfer and an artist, but his critically acclaimed art stands separate and you’d be hard pushed to tell that he is an avid, daily, surfer from looking at the majority of his output. His most recent exhibition Ocean Memories, which opens this weekend at the Edward Cella Art and Architecture Gallery in Los Angeles, draws almost exclusively upon his experiences as a surfer however; Surf Simply caught up with Ryan between returning from a trip to Hawaii and the opening of the exhibition to find out more about how and why he’s finally brought the two together.