Dr David Ryan: ‘Between Abstraction and Archaism – Towards an Interdisciplinary Practice’

In this talk Dr. David Ryan will address some of the issues coming out of his practice. Straddling painting, video, sound/music, performance over 40 years, he will select five to six works/projects in order to examine the origins and references that inform them as well as broaching the thorny issue of what might constitute research and methodology in relation to a given practice.

David Ryan is a visual artist also involved in contemporary music and currently Associate Professor in Fine Art at Cambridge School of Art. Born in Liverpool, UK, he studied at Coventry Polytechnic, and received his PhD by publication from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge in 2010. Exhibitions of paintings include ‘Crossing Abstraction’ at Kunstlerhaus Bethianen, Berlin (2009), Kunsthaus and Forum Konkrete Kunst, Erfurt, Germany (2012), ‘After Image’ (Emerson Gallery, Berlin 2013); ‘At the Point of Gesture’ (2015), Wimbledon Space, June Mostra, British School at Rome (2016), ‘Granular’(2018) Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich; ‘Phase 1 – 4, Painting, Drawing, Architecture’ (co-curated with Benet Spencer 2018/20), Toulouse, Palais des Arts, and Galerie HLM, Marseilles; ‘Variations and Echoes’, Kapil Jariwala (2019); ‘The Undersides of Practice’, APT Gallery, London (2020) and Museo Civico, Pescia, Italy (2023). Screenings of his video works have taken place at Konzerthaus, Berlin, Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, Issue Project Space, New York; V22 Space, London (2012 and 2016); Logos, Ghent (2013), and Qo2 in Brussels, Belgium (2013), Teatro Pollini, Padua (2014) ICA, London (2014) Venice Biennale (2015). He has also performed in concerts and radio broadcasts nationally and internationally, including recent concerts in Slovenia (Ljubliana City Museum) and Czech Republic (Schrattenbach Opera Festival) in December 2022; and Keats-Shelley House and Teatro Cantiere (2023) in Rome. He also written extensively on contemporary art and music for various journals including Art Monthly, Dissonanz, Modern Painters, Art Papers USA, and the Journal of Contemporary Painting.

The talk will be followed by refreshments, please RSVP.