Susan Ryman - Artist

“There is a strangeness about my work that is an invitation to contemplate the fragile and inevitably transient nature of being.

The move away from traditional fixed rectangular and square formats into multi panelled works and accordion books allows the viewer to participate in a more expansive experience. This is closer to the way we actually see as we move through space and time.

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

Memory triggers also include frail minutiae, people, moments, shadows and seemingly banal objects such as refuse, all of which are transformed into surreal dancing ghosts.

My tools are simple coloured pencils. Their application is complex and intuitively developed for over 45 years now.

The work is produced on 300gsm rag papers and 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.

This whole process mirrors our world – for better or for worse.” Susan Ryman 2025

Susan Ryman was trained in the late 1970’s  in Sydney at the National Art School, and continued at the University of Newcastle, until she was awarded a PhD in Natural History Illustration in 2015.

Since 1989 she has exhibited multiple times in Maitland, Manning and Mac Yapang Regional Galleries, and the University Gallery, Newcastle.

Independent gallery solo shows at Von Bertouch Galleries, Art Systems Wickham, Newcastle Art Space, Gallery 139 and now Straitjacket are testament to the defiantly distinct place that regional art continues to have in the Hunter.