CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Ann Ryan

Working predominately with textiles and simple cotton thread, Ann Ryan creates collages that interpret and present both the fashion world and popular culture with an affectionate irony.

Created from the artist’s own extensive collection of fabric remnants, Ryan’s images explore notions of salvage and memory, both personal and cultural, and incorporate visual elements from a diverse range of global style movements including 1960s fashion templates, traditional Japanese hand stitching techniques and even the ubiquitous Australian tourist tea towel. Wonderfully feminine and whimsical the resulting juxtapositions of pattern, form and colour playfully celebrate the aesthetics of both the humble and everyday as well as the luxurious outputs of high fashion.

Ryan’s methodical process of collecting, selecting and stitching-together salvaged fragments from once loved garments, upholstery and pieces of antique haberdashery serves as a metaphor for notions of sustainability and gives a nod to the slow fashion and visible mending movements. Full of dream-like possibility Ryan’s vibrant and highly detailed images take the viewer on a truly joyful journey of memorabilia and imagination.

The artist draws from a vast collection of fabrics when creating her work. These have been found, gifted and collected over the years. In her creative process, figures become imbibed with the past lives of these fabrics, and this circular economy of material and memory resonates through her work. Each figure is singular in its own construction and the past lives of the materials it celebrates. In this way, Ryan’s work and its figures share a collective femininity, rather than a shared identity, they are sisters, not twins. Their particularities elevate the notion of the individual and the collective memory at once..
Excerpt from exhibition essay by Laura Kirkham, 2024

ARTIST PROFILE:
Ann Ryan is a Melbourne based emerging artist with a background in retail fashion, having been a head buyer for Georges Department Store in the 1980s. More recently Ann has dedicated herself to developing a practice that unifies her interest in fashion and sustainability, completing a Diploma of Visual Art from Victoria University in 2011. She has exhibited in a number of solo and group exhibitions since graduating. Ann Ryan was the winner of the Exploration Emerging Artist Award for 2020.

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Home, Glorious Abundance I 2024
mixed media, fabric and thread
110cm x 47cm , framed size 114 x 50cm
$2,900 AUD

The Glorious Navigation I 2024
mixed media, fabric and thread
110cm x 47cm , framed
$2,900 AUD

The Glorious Navigation II 2024
mixed media, fabric and thread
110cm x 47cm , framed
$2,900 AUD

Home, Glorious Obscurity 2024
mixed media, fabric and thread
110cm x 47cm , framed size 114 x 50cm
$2,900 AUD

Worker Bee 2024
collage on timber panel
20cm x 20cm
$600 AUD

Maria Assumpta 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
101cm x 81cm framed size 105 x 85cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,900 AUD

The Empress and the Moth 2021
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
101cm x 81cm framed size 105 x 85cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,900 AUD

The Knowing Woman and the Parrot 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
76cm x 56cm framed size 80 x 60cm
In Artist's Studio
$2,500 AUD

The Cut Flower Merchant I 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
124cm x 49cm framed size 128 x 53cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,500 AUD

The Cut Flower Merchant II 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
124cm x 49cm framed size 128 x 53cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,500 AUD

Floral Symphony I 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
43cm x 150cm framed size 47 x 154cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,000 AUD

Fan Tales 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
56cm x 76cm framed size 60 x 80cm
In Artist's Studio
$2,300 AUD

All a Flutter 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
56cm x 76cm framed size 60 x 80cm
In Artist's Studio
$2,300 AUD

The Sydney Harbour Bridge Souvenir 2020
fabric & thread
84cm x 44cm , framed
IN ARTIST STUDIO
$1,950 AUD

The Miranda Souvenir 2020
fabric & thread, framed
84cm x 44cm
IN ARTIST STUDIO
$1,950 AUD

The Duchess Of the Harvest 2021
Mixed media
101cm x 81cm
In Artist's Studio
$4,900 AUD

Sea Nymph I 2020
collage mixed media
42cm x 150cm
(framed size 46 x 154cm)
IN ARTIST STUDIO
$4,500 AUD

Listen Up 2019
collage mixed media
76cm x 57cm
(framed size 80 x 61cm)
IN ARTIST STUDIO
$1,950 AUD

Same Same, but Different 2024
fabric and thread, framed
101cm x 81cm
$5,000 AUD