Abbey Ryan (born 1979, New Jersey) is a contemporary American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

, best known for her representational,

classical realism Classical Realism is an artistic movement in the late-20th and early 21st century in which drawing and painting place a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th-century neoclassicism and realism. Origins The term "Classic ...

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

and ''

trompe-l'œil ; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...

'' paintings. Her work is inspired by 17th century Dutch still life painting. She lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Biography

A recognized leader in the "Painting-A-Day" movement, Ryan's work has been featured and reviewed in dozens of print and web publications, including

Seth Godin Seth W. Godin, also known under his pen name as "F. X. Nine" (born 1960), is an American author, marketing expert, entrepreneur, and a former dot-com business executive. Early life and education Seth W. Godin graduated from Williamsville East H ...

's Linchpin,

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, as part of the Women Who Make Beautiful Things section,

Boing Boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

, Good Day Philadelphia on

WTXF WTXF-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Owned and operated by the Fox network through its Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on Market Street in Center City and ...

, Yale Radio's The Art World Demystified, WYBC, Brainard Carey's ''Making It In the Art World'', ''New Markets for Artists'', and ''American Art Collector'' magazine. Ryan was named #5 on the list of "49 Creative Geniuses Who Use Blogging to Promote Their Art" by SmartBlogger.com. Ryan's work is held in over 1500 public and private collections all over the world.

Education

In 2002, Ryan studied oil painting with contemporary master David A. Leffel at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. Ryan went on to receive bachelor's degrees in painting and

scientific illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, Flyer (pamphlet), flyers, magazines, books, teaching material ...

Arcadia University Arcadia University is a private university in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, with a Glenside mailing address. The university enrolls approximately 3,200 undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students. The 94-acre (380,000 m2) Glenside cam ...

in 2003. She studied medical and biological illustration at

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 1893 following the construction of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the ...

, Department of Art as Applied to Medicine. Ryan then moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and earned a MFA in painting at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. She has studied and painted in the United States and abroad, including Italy, Spain, South Korea, Chile, Brazil, and Cuba.

Work

Ryan started making daily paintings for her

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

Ryan Studio
on September 23, 2007. About her work, Ryan writes, "painting has become my meditative time and the best part of my day. Attempting to paint every day speaks to my interest in ritual, practice, classical realist still life and trompe l'oeil painting." Ryan's work has been described as "exquisitely rendered, showcasing both excellent draftsmanship and painterly qualities. In fact, in nearly all of Ryan's paintings there are subtle details that shouldn't be overlooked." and "Abbey Ryan makes some of the most exquisite still life paintings you will ever see. Her background includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in both fine art and medicine, a combination that would have been understood and appreciated by such great Renaissance artists as

da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

and

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

Teaching

Ryan is a sought after painting instructor, in part due to her commitment to contemplative and mindful studio practice, and

alla prima Wet-on-wet, or ''alla prima'' (Italian, meaning ''at first attempt''), direct painting or au premier coup, is a painting technique in which layers of wet paint are applied to previously administered layers of wet paint. Used mostly in oil pain ...

painting from life. She teaches studio art at

and professional painting seminars at the John F. Peto Studio Museum.

Live painting demonstrations

Ryan conducts live painting demonstrations, a practice reminiscent of the publicly visible

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

workshops that traditionally lined the

Ponte Vecchio The Ponte Vecchio (; "Old Bridge") is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno, in Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during World War II, it is noted for the shops built along it; ...

since at least the 12th century. For approximately two hours, she completes a painting from start to finish in front of a live audience and streamed live online. The recording is then compressed into a short time lapse video. In 2011, Ryan's live demo was broadcast on FOX 29's ''Good Day Philadelphia''. Her live demonstrations are typically donation events with the painting auctioned as a fundraiser for various causes.

Catalogues

In 2006, Ryan assisted Hunter College professor of art

Gabriele Evertz Gabriele Evertz (born 1945 in Berlin, Germany) is an American painter, curator and professor who is applying the history and theory of color in her work. She is known for abstract color painting and Geometric abstraction. Life and work Gabriel ...

in curating ''Presentational Painting III'', February 16-April 15, 2006, The Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 450 West 41st Street, New York, NY 10036. Ryan wrote all texts on exhibition artists, including Don Voisine, Matthew Deleget (co-founder of Minus Space), Hartmut Bohm, Paul Corio, Daniel Crews, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Changha Hwang, Susanne Jung, Steve Karlik, Rossana Martinez, Charlotte Nicholson, Francisca Reyes, Steven Salzman, Martijn Schuppers, and Mike Stack. 63 pages. Catalogue .

Scientific illustration

In 2001, Ryan completed a scientific Illustration Internship at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. She did volunteer work and scientific illustration work at Pohnpei Agriculture and Trade School (PATS), Pohnpei, Micronesia and the Marine Science and SCUBA Study at Marine and Environmental Research Institute, Pohnpei, Micronesia. In 2004, Ryan worked as a Botanical Illustrator in collaboration with Dr. Chris Somerville at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

Professional memberships

* Oil Painters of America * International Guild of Realism * American Artists Professional League * American Women Artists, Associate with Distinction * National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society * Daily Paintworks

External links

AbbeyRyan.comRyanStudio.blogspot.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Abbey 1979 births Living people Hunter College alumni Arcadia University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Painters from New Jersey Trompe-l'œil artists Art Students League of New York alumni 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters