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.

Slowly and methodically tacked together with intentionally large stitches and visible loose threads, patterns of silky flowers coalesce with the coarse thread of upholstery, tropical fish swim alongside scraps of summery cotton and waratahs and watermelons precariously balance on top of silhouettes fashioned from tourist tea towels. This process of layering and manipulation results in images that are at once discreetly humorous and achingly beautiful. Her cast of goddesses, nymphs and nobility possess a kind of trans-global aesthetic, in part due to the diversity of fabrics being brought together. With the fecundity of Botticelli’s Primavera, the finery and elegance of a Rococo portrait and the retro carnival spirit of Carmen Miranda each figure speaks of an inner life full of memories, dreams and possibilities.
Excerpt from exhibition essay by Phe Luxford 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All a Flutter 2022
mixed media, fabric & thread, framed
56cm x 76cm framed size 60 x 80cm
$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
$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