Veronica Ryan – Collective Moments
Presented in collaboration with
Camden Art Centre, London
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024.
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024.
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024.
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XL, 2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair band. Courtesy of the artist, Alison Jacques, London and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XLII, 2018/2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair bands, approx. 15 × 10 × 3 in. Courtesy of the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and Alison Jacques, London.
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XXV, 2018/2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair bands, approx. 15 × 10 × 3 in. Courtesy of the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and Alison Jacques, London.
Press Release
Elemental processes such as tying, binding, staining and stacking are prevalent throughout Veronica Ryan’s work. She deploys these techniques with intense sensitivity as a kind of reckoning or discovery. In these wall-based sculptural works – which sit somewhere between textile, relief, sculpture and painting – pillowcases are tie-dyed and then twisted and bunched with coloured hair bobbles. It creates an object rich with associations to the body, to states of rest, sleep, dream and reverie, as well as the daily rituals and complex cultural signifiers of clothing, care, grooming and hair styling.
In the early 1980s Ryan spent time in Nigeria and became fascinated with how meaning could be wrested from the raw materials of life. It was here that she first witnessed votive objects being fashioned from everyday materials – hair, eggs, chalk and kola nuts – and became fascinated by the way they were invested, through ritual, with a spiritual power, used for psychic defence, personal care, mystical healing or for honouring ancestors.
Collective Moments, 2018/2023, draws on and extends all of these themes and ideas. In the apparent simplicity of its engagement with the humble materials of everyday life, Ryan opens up new systems of meaning. Her works are constellations and expressions of embodied, hand-worked, intuitive and highly-charged material knowledge, what the critic Barry Schwabsky has described as ‘a sort of rumination-by-doing’, or ‘materialised thought process.’ As with so many of Ryan’s works, they play with the familiar forms, languages and histories of modernist Western art, whilst at the same time invoking more active, ritualistic objects, drawn from various African and Caribbean cultures.
This exhibition has been organised by Camden Art Centre, London, and all of the works have been generously donated by Veronica Ryan to be sold in benefit of their charitable mission. All of the proceeds will go directly toward supporting Camden Art Centre’s internationally renowned exhibition, residency and learning programmes.
To find out more about purchasing one of these unique works please email patrons@camdenartcentre.org
Camden Art Centre would like to thank Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Alison Jacques, London and White Columns.
About Veronica Ryan:
Veronica Ryan OBE RA, was born in 1956 in Plymouth, Montserrat. She moved as an infant with her parents to London before going on to study at St Albans College of Art and Design, Bath Academy of Art, and Slade School of Fine Art, London. In 2022 she won the Turner Prize. Ryan had a residency at Camden Art Centre in 1994 and an exhibition at the gallery the following year. She divides her time between the USA and UK.
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am to 6pm.
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024. (Front gallery view. Thirteen similar textile and elastic band sculptures are shown hanging on the wall. The sculptures are all made in the same process—similar to how fabric is prepared for tie-dying—but each is unique in color and shape. The sculptures are hung at different heights in a salon-like arrangement.)
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024. Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024. (Angled view of the front gallery wall. Thirteen wall-mounted sculptures are visible. The fabric of each sculpture has been twisted in multiple places and held with multi-colored elastic bands. The sculptures are a variety of greens, purples, oranges, and reds, each a different color. A book resting on a shelf is visible to the left.)
Veronica Ryan, installation view, 2024. (Partial, angled view of front gallery wall. Thirteen wall-mounted sculptures are visible from the left side, showing the folds and volume in the fabric created through tightly wrapped, bright multi-colored elastic bands. Through a brick archway, Carole Gibbons’ colorful paintings are visible in the background.)
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XL, 2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair band. Courtesy of the artist, Alison Jacques, London and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. (A deep, indigo blue piece of fabric is tied and folded in multiple places with an array of brightly colored bands of many colors, creating dynamic peaks and valleys in the fabric.)
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XLII, 2018/2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair bands, approx. 15 × 10 × 3 in. Courtesy of the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and Alison Jacques, London. (A piece of bright purple fabric with brightly multi-colored bands tied in different places.)
Veronica Ryan, Collective Moments XXV, 2018/2023, tie-dye pillow case, hair bands, approx. 15 × 10 × 3 in. Courtesy of the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and Alison Jacques, London. (A mossy green dyed piece of fabric, where the green color varies throughout. The fabric is folded and scrunched in different places held by brightly colored bands of orange, reds, blues, and yellow. The folds of the fabric suggest elastic bands are holding the fabric on the side facing the wall, as well.)
