The Ride Gallery Debuts Today to Bring Social Entrepreneurship to the Art World

The Ride Gallery celebrates the global launch of its pursuit to elevate underground artists working internationally at the intersection of high design, street art, and surf cultures. The Ride Gallery was founded by Sam Anderson, the recent Managing Director of the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. After staging exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art in 2011-2012 with world renowned artists such as FrEd Wilson, Bill Viola, and Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Anderson now launches The Ride Gallery to return to his own aesthetic roots in street art and surf culture.

Surfing and surf culture have long influenced the worlds of fashion, music, and film and have captivated such renowned contemporary artists as Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, Julian Schnabel, Russell Crotty and Raymond Pettibon. "There is an extraordinary undercurrent of creative talent working beneath the veneer of the contemporary art world and, undoubtedly, street and surf cultures serve as both nexus and proving ground for new aesthetics," says Anderson. "The Ride Gallery will provide global exposure to these exciting new talents while also providing a very accessible entry point for collectors."

The Ride Gallery debuts today with its online presence at http://www.theridegallery.com, while 2013 will see the gallery stake a pop-up presence at select design, street art and surf culture events around the globe. Featured artists in The Ride Gallery's inaugural roster include: Aleix Abellanet (Spain), Nick Frank (Germany), David Jacobs (Brooklyn, NY), Kamargo (Belgium), Dalton Portella (Montauk, NY), Natalia Rak (Poland), Remi Thornton (Boston, MA) and the X-Ray Machines Collective (Australia). Exhibited artworks include a stunning array of limited-edition photographs, prints, works on paper and sculptures, all reflecting youthful and vibrant aesthetics emblematic of today's design, surf and street art cultures.