Artist Statement
Ryan’s paintings are sincere attempts to conjure the emotive magic and experience of places. The artist sets up his work between the two poles of observation and experimentation. He often begins with plein air sketches, invigorated by the translation of perception to form. Next the surface is built up with an array of techniques, paying close attention to the overall atmosphere of each scene. A seasoned printmaker, he prints sections of the scene onto the canvas with monotype plates. These areas interrupt the sense of time for the viewer, suggesting not just the artist’s memory but the encroachment of digital flatness on contemporary landscape. Each painting hums with a buzz longing. Employing variations in perspective and scale, dissolving forms, and competing patterns, the artist seems desperate to prolong and animate his world. The concreteness of these ever-changing moments varies as he takes on new inspirations from the world around him. At times, the looseness of Ryan’s drifting imagination brings to mind meditative traditions, Symbolists, and painterly play. Elsewhere, his strong interest in French landscape traditions comes through. Ryan’s paintings follow on the heels of Thiebaud and Hockney’s emotive landscape paintings, while the artist puts forward a contemporary possibility for the cumulative experience of a landscape.
Artist CV
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