Robert Ryan
Born in County Limerick in 1963, Robert Ryan graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1987.
He worked in Copenhagen and London before returning to Ireland in 1994.
In Ireland, Ryan’s work is viewed as somewhat unique. Referencing post-modern, it borrows qualities from European old masters, using traditional characteristics in a modern context. Robert Ryan paints landscape, but his work cannot be described as ‘landscape painting’. Allegorical concepts including the infinity of space and time, solitude, vulnerability, fragility and the cycle of life are explored in his paintings and drawings in which a generic four-legged creature is central. This creature inhabits another world, a universal landscape. Ryan has cultivated his images, of both place and it’s inhabitants, into a hybrid, a non-specific and as a result the viewer is left to reflect on essential truths. This is work that ultimately celebrates the commonality between man and all other creatures – past, present and future.
An interest in zoology and travel has hugely informed Ryan’s work. He has travelled widely, visiting over sixty countries on all continents where he has encountered many different eco-systems, experiencing first hand how all living things interact and how they respond to their environment, how man responds to other evolutionary groups and how we value that fact. This knowledge forms a major part of the work.
COLLECTIONS
University of Limerick, Ireland
National Contemporary Drawing Collection, Ireland
National Portrait Collection, Ireland
Office of Public Works, Ireland
Limerick County Council, Ireland
Limerick City Gallery, Ireland
Wexford County Council, Ireland
Private Collections in Ireland, Europe, America, Asia and Australia