Joseph A. Ryan

Born in England in 1982, grew up in Kent, I studied in London before moving to New York in 2004 for a Masters degree at the New York Studio School.  I went on to become Assistant Professor at West Connecticut State University before returning to England where I held a residency at The Oratory School for three years.  I now teach and run the Art department at Rugby School in Warwickshire.

I make autobiographical paintings, dealing with traditions of geometry and references to the history of Art.  My work explores various themes of language and experience through metaphors in still-life and portrait;  essentially it is all about learning, I paint to better understand the Masters, to better understand my medium and to better understand my instincts

Represented by Galerie Mourlot in New York, and Atelier Alen in Munich, I exhibit regularly with the New English Art Club in London and am now a member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters.

From Galerie Mourlot

“Joseph Ryan’s work serves as an active reminder that some types of perceptual information are more accurately conveyed through the hand and eye than through a lens; that the processes of selection, invention and emphasis possible through drawing can more closely describe an experience than the singular vision of a snapshot. The deceptively straightforward poses of the single figure in Ryan’s drawings can, for example, be seen as operating in concert with a succession of formal and pictorial decisions that together serve to evoke a nuanced range of associations.

Recalling at once the incisive eye of Degas and the domestic engagement of Bonnard, Ryan has achieved in his work a portrait of interior and everyday life in its full emotional spectrum; its polarities of affection/ isolation, ennui/ adoration.”

www.galeriemourlot.com