WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., Sept. 29, 2017 — West Liberty University is now featuring the work of contemporary artist Nicole Renee Ryan in its Nutting Gallery.
A native of Mercer, Pa., Ryan works in Pittsburgh and is a watercolorist, oil painter and muralist.
“Nicole is obsessed in painting her memories of the natural world. These memories are misremembered, wrong, overly romantic or tragic, and are defined as much by what is missing by what is present. Her landscapes are dominated by large clouds, grey skies, storms and flattened patches of earth,” explained Bob Villamagna, curator of the exhibition and professor of art at WLU.
“I blur out details, preferring the viewer fill in their own. I want people to be able to imagine themselves or their relatives in place of the subject. I want the suggested history of the image to feel like their history.
“My subjects get flattened, blurred, faces blend into the landscape, the clouds melt into the horizon line. I want the works to be soft, unfocused and distant. A memory almost lost. Misremembered. Imagined,” she said.
“Landscapes are my perfect metaphor. Clouds and weather become mood and personality. Light and color shift and move to become a simple description of time when seen subtly changing over multiple paintings,” she explained.
Ryan earned a bachelor’s in psychology at Washington and Jefferson in 2007, graduating cum laude with a minor in professional writing. In 2015 Ryan was awarded a residency at the New York Student’s League at Vytlacil Campus and a fellowship at Virginia Center of Creative Arts. She also was nominated for Pittsburgh Emerging Artist of the Year in 2016.
“Nicole Ryan: Memories of Memories” runs through Oct. 19 and is free and open to the public. Located in the Hall of Fine Arts, the Nutting Gallery hours are from 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Monday-Friday, evenings and weekends by arrangement. For more information please contact Villamagna at 304.336.8370 or rvillama@westliberty.edu.