Today we dive deep in the art world to bring you this new series: Artists around the globe that you need to know about. We all need inspiration from time to time, we need to be delighted, surprised and distracted. That is why art comes into the picture, to give us a breath of fresh air in this chaotic world we are living in at the moment. Beginning this series with the American Kathleen Ryan, a renowned artist that has been a museum, gallery and online sensation these last years, especially with her oeuvre: Bad Fruit.
Ryan was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1984. She studied archeology and art and is an undergraduate at Pitzer College, having received her MFA from the University of California. The artist currently lives and works in New Jersey. In 2017 she had her debut museum exhibition called Bacchante, which opened at the Theseus temple, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Some of her work was exhibited in more than 7 countries, including Germany, Norway, US, Austria, among others.
Her work has been around the world, but the exhibition that captured the internet was the one called “Bad fruit”. Ryan proposed a series of decaying, expired fruit transformed into precious shiny pieces with unthinkable materials. Revalorising something we see as discard, ugly and not valuable. Ryan used the American craft tradition of pushpin beaded fruit and was inspired by holiday kitsch (artificial fruit ornaments) . For the side of the fruit-sculpture that show rotten decomposition the artist uses semiprecious stone’s beads, an irony well-placed. However for the “healthy” or “fresh” side of the fruit she uses glass and acrylic beads. She followed suit this exposition with the same line of ideas, the next one was Bad Melon in 2020 and Bad Cherries in 2021, larger scale sculptures that portray an image of overconsumption, something the health organizations criticize a lot in the US.
Transformation, flowing of time, instability, beginnings and endings are some of the words that come to mind when faced with Ryan’s sculptures. The artist states that the mold in her art is “the most alive part” but at the same time she introduces interesting concepts and contrasts in her work. Ryan uses stones to sew around the fruit, an element that is associated with the idea of longevity, stability and purity in juxtaposition of the decay of the mold expanding and contaminating the fruit, promising its sudden death.
The process of her creations is equally captivating, the materials she chooses can be particular, like a trunk of a AMC Javelin from 1968 left to waste in a junkyard and transforming the metal into the rind of an orange slice. Her work has been collected by many institutions: including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And more seem to be interested in expanding her vision worldwide.
Art poses questions, what is it meant to tell us? Anything that comes to mind, if we leave with a reflection or we end up making some questions in our heads or out loud, art has achieved some goals. Ryan’s art leaves us with some inquiries and some ideas floating around. And that is what makes it extraordinary.
