Susan Ryman - Sisters

The apparent strangeness of my work is an invitation to contemplate the fragile nature of existence.

Refuse is transformed into surreal dancing ghosts, harbingers of our cultural disregard, which call to specific personal memories. Unlikely and often ignored motifs in contemporary Australian life include frail minutiae, people, moments, things hidden by shadow, and, conversely, seemingly unspectacular and banal objects, all find their way into new worlds.

Colour saturated light and layers of contour conscious texture are elements that form strange and sumptuous new worlds. Depictions of moth eaten tapestry, ancient mosaics, fruit bursting with ripeness, fish, feathers, houses and domestic rubbish all move out of context with each other under brooding skies, bringing past and present together in new worlds that are entirely imagined.

My practice has always been dedicated to developing a unique approach using simplecoloured pencils and the methodologies of traditional natural history illustration, the result being a product of close observation and technically laborious application. The work is produced using layers of coloured pencil sealed with multiple layers of varnish which stabilises the surface, prevents foxing and prolongs the life of the work and lures the viewer into the immediacy of the image itself.

Observation of the unlikely and interest in the shifting perception of human endeavour, mirrors our world – for better or for worse.