TODD STONG & BIG RAMP at 2026 NADA NY

BIG RAMP is thrilled to announce participation in NADA NY with the work of Philadelphia-based printmaker Todd Stong.  In a first for Big Ramp we take our project on the road, bringing with us a selection of Stong’s scenic monotypes and graphite drawings, as well as a new series of glazed ceramics.  

Working in figuration across extremes of scale—in intimate graphite drawings and monumental, scenic monotypes—Todd Stong makes images that elaborate on processes of queer cultural production and power. With focus vibrating between the world-building capacities of visionary individuals and the tangle of the crowd, he hopes to live into the identities of queer and forgotten art-historical figures of the past with deep empathetic feeling. Populating his imagery is an array of figures and skeletons in a mesh of interface and disconnect—some at work, some aroused, others in danger, still more making mischief.  In addition to addressing larger political structures and biographies, these scenes represent his own experience as a gay man interacting with other men and the world at large, with all the accompanying risk, transgression, and reward. 

“That juxtaposition parallels the extremes of queer experience, which swing from ecstasy to pain, safety to danger, community to isolation, often as quickly as passing through a door. I hope that something in that scale shift, that sense of swift and vast transition, will stay with viewers as a simple but central facet of my work.”

— Todd Stong, Space On Space Magazine, March 2026

The centerpiece of our NADA presentation is The Johann Joachim Winckelmann Sculpture Park (Murder and Executions), a monumental 27-panel monotype polyptych spanning nearly ten by twenty-two feet. The work stages the construction of an imagined sculpture park dedicated to Johann Joachim Winckelmann—the 18th-century Prussian scholar considered the father of art history, and a homosexual man in an era of state-sanctioned violence against queer people.  Stong’s composition teems with over 200 figures—laborers, angels, snakes, cats—engaged in the chaotic, collective project of monument-building. The workers sculpt in snow, tend to one another, and restage Winckelmann’s murder and his killer’s execution. The result is an artwork that functions simultaneously as historical tableau, queer allegory, meditation on artistic labor, and deeply personal autobiography.  In addition to these works, our Big Ramp fair booth will also have available for purchase a freshly printed catalogue documenting the Winckelmann Sculpture Park.

NADA NY 2026 will be held May 13-17 at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in West Chelsea's gallery district at 601 West 26th Street. BIG RAMP’s contribution is made possible with support from TD Bank in a curated spotlight selected by Anthony Elms, artistic director of the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh PA).  See you there! 

https://hyperallergic.com/nada-new-york-2026-welcomes-121-international-galleries

Bio:

Todd Stong (b. 1991, Trenton, NJ) is an artist, educator, curator, and writer based in Philadelphia, PA. He makes images that elaborate on processes of queer cultural production, desire, and power. With focus shifting between the world-building capacities of visionary individuals and the tangle of the crowd, he constructs harried landscapes and interiors dedicated to forgotten figures of the past alongside contemporary anxieties of sexuality and disease. Populating his imagery is a mesh of bodies and skeletons – some at work, some aroused, others in danger, still more making mischief. In addition to addressing larger political structures and biographies, these scenes represent his own experience as a gay man interacting with other men and the world at large, with all the accompanying risk and reward.

Stong received a BA in Visual and Literary Arts from Brown University in 2014 and an MFA in Printmaking from the Tyler School of Art and Temple Rome in 2022. He has held residencies and fellowships at Yaddo, The Lighthouse Works, MASS MoCA, In Cahoots, The Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and he was a Post-Graduate Apprentice at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Group and two-person exhibitions include spaces such as Candice Madey Gallery, New York, NY; Dolan/Maxwell at IFPDA, New York, NY;  Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, DE; and SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, New York, NY. His solo exhibition, Becoming Hole, showed at Peep Projects in 2024 alongside a concurrent solo exhibition, Preamble, at Second State Press, where he was the 2023 Cindi Royce Ettinger Fellow. He is currently preparing for a solo exhibition at Headstone Gallery in Kingston, NY slated for July 2026. Stong is an adjunct professor of drawing at the Kutztown University, Tyler School of Art and Delaware County Community College, and he co-directs Fjord Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.