FAGGOT BAGGAGE
“Ryan Bauer-Walsh just laid his heart bare for us with this performance art piece. Holy shit.”
“RYAN BAUER-WALSH'S ART IS filled with bruises. Some are visible; others are buried. Together, they reflect a life marked by trauma and an artist determined to transform his own pain into something sweeter.”
-Randy Shulman, Metro Weekly
WHAT AUDIENCES ARE SAYING:
“Watching Faggot Baggage is like being flayed by a hot knife. Ryan Bauer-Walsh’s searing grief is exquisite. I opened myself up and sat with not just his pain, but my own. Faggot Baggage is the kind of catharsis that is only possible when someone cries, wails, screams, makes us confront what seems insurmountable. Ryan makes his inner world palpable, allows us to witness and hold it with him, for him. It’s a gorgeous piece. A must-see for anyone holding too tightly to something that hurts.”
“It was inspiring, cathartic, beautiful, and ferociously human.”
WHAT AUDIENCES ARE SAYING:
“Congratulations, Ryan Bauer-Walsh, for a powerful performance & solo show at Gallery 198 Brooklyn.”
“Very proud of Ryan Bauer-Walsh and his deeply moving art show tonight.”
“An incredible show. Including a performance art piece — so moving, vulnerable, grotesque, beautiful…”
“The entrance to the Banana Duck portion of this exhibit was so childlike and joyful.”
“Obsessed. Ryan Bauer-Walsh nailed it.”
“This showcase wrecked me. Incredible work, Ryan Bauer-Walsh.”
Gallery 198
Presents
RYAN BAUER-WALSH
A New Solo Exhibition
FAGGOT BAGGAGE
PRESENTED WITH AN AUGUST 8 LIVE
PERFORMANCE EXPLORING GRIEF,
QUEER IDENTITY, AND THE STORIES WE
CARRY
More than 50 new paintings, installation work, and a one-night live ticketed
performance transform Gallery 198 into an evolving autobiographical landscape.
August 8 – 16, 6pm at Gallery 198 24th Street Brooklyn, NY 11232
_________________________________________________________________________
“Ryan’s paintings hit several registers at once: they are luminous, aching with light,
and storm systems of grief. Somehow they spin whimsy and realism into suture
thread — becoming tougher than beauty itself, and more lasting, more useful.”
-Gallery 198 Curator, Billy Merrell
_________________________________________________________________________
BROOKLYN, NY —Gallery 198 in Brooklyn will present FAGGOT BAGGAGE, a new solo
exhibition of 50 paintings by Harlem-based multidisciplinary artist Ryan Bauer-Walsh,
opening at 6pm August 8 and remaining on display though August 16th 2026. Combining
painting, installation, performance, and personal archive, the exhibition features more than
fifty new works ranging in size from 5”x7” to 60”x30”
, alongside a live performance during
which the exhibition itself is constructed before the audience. Ryan’s art has been featured in
the New York Times and is in the permanent collection of the National Archives. This
exhibition marks his solo debut in New York City. Images of the work can be found HERE.
Developed over the past year following the death of the artist’s mother and a period spent
living in Mexico, FAGGOT BAGGAGE examines grief, queer identity, trauma, faith, and
resilience through surreal imagery rooted in autobiography. Rather than presenting a finished
exhibition, Bauer-Walsh transforms the gallery throughout the evening, unpacking paintings,
clothing, personal objects, and fragments of lived experience that become part of the
installation itself.The exhibition brings together intimate autobiographical works alongside larger social
commentary, reflecting on loss, identity, and contemporary American culture. Painted in a
visual language the artist describes as “new-age magical realism,” the works will inhabit the
gallery on a web of clothes line as a metaphor for a mothers work creating tension between
childhood wonder and psychological excavation.
Several large-scale paintings memorialize friends lost to cancer, suicide, HIV-related illness,
and medical malpractice, while other works confront sexual violence, depression, body
dysmorphia, religious trauma, and the lasting effects of grief.
Throughout the exhibition, recurring images of Bauer-Walsh’s “Banana Ducks”—hybrid non-
binary creatures that have become a signature motif in the artist’s work—offer moments of
playfulness and hope, representing queer joy as an act of resilience. Also; included in many
works are images of an apathetic blue spindly figure representing God; watching silently and
never interfering.
A central installation invites visitors into an adult-sized, hand-painted play fort filled with
Banana Ducks, creating a place of refuge amid the emotional weight of the surrounding
work. As Bauer-Walsh explains, “Our bruises make us sweeter; tempting God’s appetite.
”
One room in the gallery will hold a large scale installation of clotheslines with hundreds of
church sermon programs hung like prayer flags. It accompanies two pieces entitled "Men of
Faith" and "Christ with painted nails" which is about how the intersection of faith, race and
sexual orientation is a dangerous place to exist for many minority groups today and
throughout history. “God has been the reason for so much violence- and that hangs over me
everyday.
”
The performance culminates with the public presentation of video documentation from the
year following the death of Bauer-Walsh’s mother, during which the artist wore her clothing
as a private ritual of mourning in public view. What began as an intensely personal act
becomes, within the exhibition, a meditation on identity, memory, and release.
“I’ve been called a faggot since before I knew what it meant or who I was,” says Bauer-
Walsh. “For much of my life I’ve performed versions of myself that felt safer than the truth.
This exhibition is about choosing honesty instead. Every painting is a piece of baggage I’ve
carried, and this is the first time I’m inviting other people to unpack it with me and hang my
dirty laundry for all to see.
”
Known for creating what he describes as “new queer cultural traditions,” Bauer-Walsh’s
broader practice spans painting, illustration, music, installation, and performance. His
projects include The Rainbow Lullaby, the world’s first queer family lullaby album, which was
shortlisted for Grammy consideration. He is currently writing three new pieces; an opera
about God wiping their own memory, a queer Christmas album and a piece entitled
QUANTUM MASS which follows the structure of the Catholic mass reinterpreted through the
laws of physics and thermodynamics. Ryan's work explores the creation of new Queer
traditions and shared cultural narratives through deeply personal storytelling.
The exhibition contains mature subject matter including sexual assault, grief, death, illness,
religious trauma, body image, drug use, and partial nudity. A content advisory will
accompany the exhibition.
In conjunction with FAGGOT BAGGAGE, Gallery 198 will host a men’s clothing drive
benefiting The Ali Forney Center. Visitors are encouraged to donate men’s clothing,
including sweaters and outerwear. Selected donated garments may become part of the
evolving exhibition installation. The August 8th performance art piece is a ticketed event with
the gallery opening to all guests, for free, concluding the performance.Tickets available here;
https://tickets.gallery198.app/faggotbaggage .
About Ryan Bauer-WalshRyan Bauer-Walsh is a Harlem-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity,
performance, memory, grief, and personal mythology through painting, installation,
illustration, music, and live performance. Working between surrealism, absurdism, and
magical realism, Bauer-Walsh transforms autobiographical experiences into immersive visual
narratives that move between humor, vulnerability, and psychological intensity.His work has
been exhibited throughout New York City, featured in The New York Times, and is held in
private collections internationally as well as in the U.S. National Archives. In addition to his
studio practice, Bauer-Walsh has created murals, illustrated books and publications, and
continues to develop interdisciplinary projects centered on storytelling, ritual, and the
creation of new queer cultural traditions. RyanBauerWalsh.com Instagram: @rbwART
EXHIBITION DETAILS
FAGGOT BAGGAGE A Solo Exhibition and Performance by Ryan Bauer-Walsh
Gallery 198
198 24th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11232
Exhibition
August 8–16, 2026
Opening Reception & Live Performance
Saturday, August 8, 2026,
Doors: 6:00 PM, Performance: 7:00 PM,
Exhibition Opens to general public: 8:00 PM
Tickets
https://tickets.gallery198.app/faggotbaggage
Artist Fundraiser