Artist Statement
Art is a very "hands-on " activity. But it is also a very subjective activity where varying viewpoints, experiences, traditions, and visions shape and mold the artist's creation. Art can always be relied on to do one thing and, that is, to affect some response from its audience. These are universal facts that, I think, all artists and art lovers can agree on.
I am a painter. As a painter, there some things that I wish to include in my work. The work is largely expressionist in form and deals with and celebrates the landscape. I am influenced and include elements of the methods and ideas found in such diverse groups as the West Coast Plein Air movement, the 1960s bay area figurative painters, Wolf Kahn's colorist theories, as well as, the work of Ken Elliott and Roger Bechtold. One thing all these groups and artists have in common is the insistence that the "hand of the artist" be present in all their work. The surfaces, color choices, design, and composition are all a painter's personal calligraphy. This is important to me because I regard the subject less important than its presentation of the subject as a painting.
The result is that you can expect to see in my paintings a design motif using landscape, figurative elements, or, even, still life, along with creative color choices and an active surface. The work should tell the veiwer that this a painting...not just a picture.
M. S. Ryan