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Richard
Ryan
Born 1960.
Formally, Richard Ryan's paintings and prints pay homage to the
European Masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet in his approach
to content, color, and composition he is more concerned with constructing
intimate narratives and personalities for the objects he depicts.
Ryan begins by selecting a core subject or "entity," and
builds a composition around it. These "muses" are frequently
quotidian objects, but in their representation they embody the nostalgia
and affection that Ryan feels toward them. The vegetables, figurines,
and vases that inhabit this work are rendered exquisitely, existing
on a distorted spatial plane borrowed from the Flemish still-lifes
Ryan admires. Color plays a significant role as well, imbuing each
piece with a particular mood. In his most recent work here at Wingate
Studio, Ryan has been working with a monochromatic, silvery pallette.
The result is an ethereal, delicate print that is volumetrically
robust yet smoky and elusive.
Richard
Ryan has been making paintings and prints in this vein for over
a decade, and for the last few years has been living just down the
road from Wingate in Northfield, MA. Richard teaches painting at
Boston University, and received his MFA from Yale University in
1979. He has shown his work extensively in the U.S. and abroad,
and has received numerous grants and awards for his paintings and
prints.
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