In and Out the Windows by Susan Ryman

Next date: Friday, 18 July 2025 | 09:00 AM to Saturday, 06 September 2025 | 02:30 PM

Susan Ryman
In and Out the Windows: much of the last decade in coloured pencil

Friday 18 July - Sat 7 September 2025

Opening Saturday July 26th 12 - 2pm by Ahn Wells and Dino Consalvo STRAITJACKET

In and Out the Windows: much of the last decade in coloured pencil is a selection of artworks made during the last ten years which trace the evolution of my practice. All of the pieces share the same means of making - an eye for the unlikely, reference to my trove of collected specimens and use of the humble coloured pencil on paper.

Single fixed images using rectangular and square formats, that mimic a sense of looking through a window onto the outside world sit with multi panelled works and accordion books, which are closer to the way we actually see. They reflect on the way we perceive and recall as we move through space and time using movement and our peripheral vision. By including these extended formats, I hope a more natural and expansive experience is possible, where meanings are open to personal experience and memory.

My tools are simple coloured pencils on rag paper. Their application is complex and intuitively developed for over 45 years now. Each panel is sealed with multiple layers of varnish. This stabilises the surface, prevents foxing and prolongs the life of the work. It also lures the viewer into the immediacy of the image itself.

A strangeness lingers in my work that I hope is an invitation to contemplate the fragile and inevitably transient nature of being. Frail minutiae, people, moments, shadows and seemingly banal objects such as refuse are transformed into surreal dancing ghosts.

This whole process mirrors our world - for better or for worse.

 

 

 

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