Bryan Ryley

Bryan Ryley was born in 1952. He received his Masters of Fine Arts with honours from the Pratt Institute in New York. During this time he was a graduate seminar leader, discussing Contemporary issues in American Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Bryan is a well-established artist whose work is represented in private and corporate collections around the world. He has won numerous awards and honours for his art, including a Ford Foundation award and two Canada Council awards. "For me the clearest voice emerges when the differences between stable structures are played off against unstable, precarious, often unknowable ones. The cloud paintings were a reaction to 9/11, not really towards the act itself but more so towards the players in the event. I felt a need to blister a sky with red, not an unruly or chaotic red as one would imagine, but one built upon a stable grid-like structure.This seemed the clearest way to recognize those forces responsible for the attacks, both sides symbolized by the sky and by the blistering.The sky, as a repository of belief is of equal importance in the Christian world as it is in the Muslim.The blisters could be perceived as ruptures in or from either world.This work is about questioning, about suggesting linkages, in order to provoke understanding. In the most recent work an imbedded digital image is partially submerged behind eccentric mark-making, even writing, which has been driven by impulses to conceal or expose certain facets of the image.In some instances it seemed imperative that the face of an individual be erased, the body exposed, at times whole sections are eradicated to allow for the abstract ramblings on top to have their say.This is a constant battle; its resolve established when the voice of equanimity seems secure or at least settled.At times an outpouring of words triggered by the image finds vent.What this all says or does is open to conjecture and that is the point. It is imperative to have the freedom to express, to find meaning and to go on from there.That is the reason for my pursuit."