Ryan’s paintings are a commentary on the perpetual desire to create art inspired by the human condition, the need for explanations through social conventions of our own reality and existence. His use of objects, icons, relics and sculptures are symbolic of our desire to rationalise and create rules or rituals in an otherwise chaotic world.
He says, ‘Ultimately we decode and explain our world through a system of belief. Throughout our development as a species the measure of our ability to control and refine raw materials as artisan and craftsman has been a testament of our civilization; a reflection of its wealth, prosperity and ultimately its culture. Our world is now built on the trading of these manufactured objects; cultural, religious, conceptual commodities, all becoming absorbed into our psyche; the spoils of war, trophies of ever-expanding multi nationals rather than the old Empires’