Linda Ryan
Linda Ryan has loved west coast beaches for most of her life, in San Diego with her family, at the many bays and coves she’s frequented since landing in the San Francisco Bay Area, or walking the headlands and coastline for hours on end during her recent Artist in Residence program in Mendocino. She finds experiencing waves battering or lapping at rock formations, tidepools and cliffs of the west coast to be endlessly fascinating and soothes a deep inner need for visual movement.
Artmaking has been a lifelong fascination for Ryan as well. When she was given a set of drawing pencils at an early age, she became a capable realist within a year. As a young adult, Ryan studied with photorealist Robert Steiner. And, while she achieved excellence in rendering and drew constantly, Ryan always felt there was something lacking. She did not recognize, then, that she was not feeding her need to explore and share the experience of energy and movement with others.
In 1999, Ryan began college art courses with the late Bill Paskewitz, who was known for his keen eye and critical teaching style. Painting, and learning about art, became everything for Ryan, then. Driven to push herself to her limits, she attacked art studies with a passion, cross-referencing a dozen books over each new art movement and putting the new-found knowledge to work on canvas.
She then dove into her own self-studies. Constantly painting and exploring acrylic gel mediums, she quickly moved away from exacting realism. She began to find an emerging artistic voice underscored by the previously missing expression of energy, sense of movement, and of life expressed through bold, fluid strokes.
After the events of nine-eleven, Ryan began exploring abstract figurative as a way to bring viewers an experience of the power of connection to humanity. This evolved into a series of large abstract dancers. She became known and collected for both in her region.