Veronica Ryan
(1956 - ) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Veronica Ryan |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
Plymouth, Montserral |
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| Birth: |
1956 |
| Death: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Sculpture
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Biography
For Veronica Ryan, the idea of containment and the container, an essential concern of her work, is a metaphor for wider contemporary issues of displacement and alienation.
Ryan was born in Plymouth, Montserrat, in the Caribbean. She trained in London at the Slade and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Her objects and installations use a diverse range of materials including bronze, lace, dried flowers and even dust. Her vessels are sometimes surrounded by geometric structures, as if they were archaeological finds. The sense of a forgotten past is also symbolized in Empty compartments full of dust (1993), which holds the contents of an emptied out vacuum cleaner. Here, psychoanalysis and feminism come into play The dirt, usually swept out of sight can be read as the 'subconscious' of everyday life, the hidden chaos beneath the clean surface of things. Ryan has been influenced by the feminist theorist Julia Kristeva's work on the abject, her attention to mess and waste, which offered a critique of the image of the body as pristine spectacle with impermeable boundaries.
By directing attention to what should have been discarded, Ryan exposed history as a form of representation, a fiction, created by often brutal editing. Her piece Territorial (Arts Council, 1986) is a plaster and bronze piece whose edges are curled up and hidden from view, rendering impossible any attempts to take its measure and slot it comfortably into context. |
Samples of Work
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