Spring25_Veronica Ryan_Exhibition Guide_Mar–Jul 2025

Veronica Ryan: Unruly Objects Montserrat-born British artist Veronica Ryan, OBE (b. 1956) is captivated by thresholds and transformations. In her work, motifs like pillows serve as portals to dreams, and windows provide glimpses into architecture, allowing passage between interior and exterior spaces. Similarly, flowers and fruits hover between germination, ripeness, and decay, suggesting the constant growth and changes of life. For Ryan, these transitions are both physical and psychological, reflecting the relationship between the self and the world, one culture and another, and the realms of the known and unknown. Ryan is best known for her long-standing interest in the natural world, including its intricate structures and patterns. In her work, seeds and pods hold significant but ambiguous meaning as protective vessels for new life as well as enclosed containers associated with confinement. Beyond the physical world, Ryan has also considered the inner workings of the mind and unseen forces that shape human existence— including memories, repressed desires, and traumas. Although she explores the invisible aspects of human experience, Ryan’s work is texturally rich and materially diverse. Her sculpture in traditional materials such as plaster, bronze, and marble is rooted in her academic training in the 1970s and ’80s at London’s Slade School of Fine Art and other institutions. Over the course of her career, Ryan’s artmaking has expanded to include crafts learned from her mother, such as embroidery,