American artist Ryan Whittier Hale (b. 1985) is a visual artist who manipulates photography and video through digital collage and 3D animation. Utilising fantasy and science fiction aesthetics, Hale's work questions the value of emotional investments in virtual worlds and beings in relation to its potentiality of becoming an artificial substitute for human warmth. Hale depicts this uncertainty through a desolate yet tranquil landscape he populates with genderless, artificial beings, whose delicate forms fall somewhere between organic and artifice. Their skin evoking a cold plasticity, is contradicted by their almost lifelike gestures and expressions.

Recalling the highly stylised poses of Mannerist painting, Hale's uncanny narratives draw upon the complexities of emotional entanglements against the desire for emotional communion. The beings' relationships never seem completely grounded and have a darkness looming over them. Through a process of contrasting forces, they are ever caught in cold embraces where intimacy remains just out of reach.

Hale graduated from Parsons School of Art and Design, New York with a BFA in Design and Technology, 2010, and has exhibited internationally including, a solo exhibition at envoy enterprises, New York; Aurora Festival, The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; The New Romantics, Eyebeam, New York, US; Aboveground Animation, New Museum, New York, US; Prosthetic Measures, Skopia Gallery, Geneva, CH; Svenblad/Cedrins, Undret, Stockholm, SE; Jou Le Jeu, Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, FR; Art of Elysium, Smashbox Studios, Los Angeles, US; Uptown Downtown, Abrons Art Centre, New York, US; and Beautified Taboo, Super Deluxe, Tokyo, JP.

Ryan Whittier Hale currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.