Ryan Hubbard grew up in Northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. He studied philosophy and psychology at George Mason University and, after graduation, received a Fulbright Grant to study Critical Theory in Frankfurt am Main. Although he had long enjoyed making art, it was Documenta—a major international exhibition in Kassel—that transformed his interest into a more profound creative pursuit. 

During graduate school, Hubbard’s focus turned toward philosophy, culminating in a dissertation on normative theory. This training forms the backdrop of his artistic practice. 

Philosophy relies on conceptual clarity and argumentation, constrained by discursive methodology. Art, however, offers access to the ineffable dimensions of human experience unmediated by discursive thought. Hubbard’s paintings seek to engage with these non-discursive, nonconceptual aspects of experience—the affective textures that constitute the inner landscape. He is interested in the expressive and conceptual range of realism while seeking to stretch its traditional boundaries.