Paintings by Nicole Renee Ryan

 

In the East Gallery, Ryan’s collection of expressive oil paintings, beckons viewers to step inside imaginary landscapes to explore the changing elements of Mother Nature day by day, season by season, or century by century.  Rather than serving as a backdrop for some human narrative, Ryan’s landscapes are the dancing, moving narrative of time and change themselves.

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You’ll find no figures in them as she instead wants you to picture yourself in that place, using the scale of the painting itself to provide “peepholes” with 6”x6” canvases or wide open doorways with canvases measuring more than six foot. Whether ambiguous or representational in execution, they are as oddly familiar as our own varying recollections of place.

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Ryan’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and is included in the collections of institutions like the Bill Benter Foundation. Her solo show, Land of Little Thoughts and No Worries, opened at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in 2020. Ryan has been additionally recognized with a Pittsburgh Emerging Artist nomination, a Flight School Fellowship, and a grant from Erie Arts and Culture.