Michael Ryan

Biography of Michael Ryan

Michael Ryan (*1953) has lived alternately since 1981 in his native America and in the Netherlands. His classical education in New York initially leads him towards impressionism, with a special focus on color and composition. A lover of poetry and music, he lets these influences resonate in his work. These lead him to the city, concert hall and theater, but also to cafe and street, where images of people and buildings fade into contours and abstractions in the evening light.

For a short time back to the endless silence of "upstate New York", Ryan rediscovers the landscape. In the paintings that follow, he eliminates details and compresses trees, earth and sky into almost geometric abstractions. They become penetrating images, fascinating compositions that seem to contrast with the paintings from the city.

The difference between the city and the country is not that great for the artist Michael Ryan. He observes and studies the world around him to solve a painterly problem on the canvas. It is not a representation of reality that is important, but the representation of its reality.

The painting does not show, the painting shows. There is no story, no lesson or message; there is a painting that pretends to be nothing but convincing that it is.