Abbey Ryan Gallery of Original Fine Art

DAILY PAINTWORKS

Abbey Ryan

On the leading edge of the classical revival movement - "Artist Abbey Ryan makes some of the most exquisite still life paintings you will ever see."

Abbey Ryan, American (b. 1979), is a painter interested in the poetics of painting and classical painting as a meditative practice. Painting is a deeply personal daily meditative time for Abbey. The practice of making a small painting a day speaks to her interest in practice, ritual, classical realist still life and trompe l’oeil (French for “fools the eye”) painting.

Balancing traditional artistic expression with innovation is at the heart of her creative research and practice. With the accelerated pace of life today, Abbey's classical painting practice is an act of cultural preservation and revival. Her October 2019 research travels to Europe highlighted for her the nearly invisible presence of women in classical still life painting in major museums—women represent only 1.5% of the classical paintings in major museum collections. The Louvre is home to some of the most important 17th C. Flemish still life paintings, along with works by Velázquez, Caravaggio, and Leonardo. The Mauritshuis Museum is home of the best Dutch still life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. Out of about 300 artists in the Mauritshuis Museum collection, just five (1.6%) are women; of the 1,400 painters whose work is in the Louvre’s collection, only 21 are women (1.5%). Abbey is interested in raising awareness of and contributing her voice to a genre of painting that has historically omitted women’s voices.

Abbey studied painting with David Leffel at The Art Students League of NY and completed some graduate work at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned her M.F.A. in Painting from Hunter College, CUNY in 2007. In 2007, Abbey began making small daily paintings for her blog, Ryan Studio. Abbey's work is in over 1800 private and museum collections on six continents. She has exhibited at venues such as Rockwell Museum, NY (awarded Distinguished Achievement in Still Life); Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; Tucson Art Museum; John F. Peto Museum, NJ; Pratt Munson Williams Proctor Institute, NY; Georgetown Art Center, TX; Boston Center for the Arts, and others. Philadelphia venues include Fleisher Art Memorial; Crane Arts; Mount Airy Contemporary; Painted Bride Art Center; and Wayne Art Center. Her work has been in O, The Oprah Magazine, Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, FOX's Good Day Philadelphia, BoingBoing, Artists & Illustrators, Making It In the Art World, New Markets For Artists, Fine Art Connoisseur, American Art Collector, and many others. She teaches private painting mentoring online, as well as painting workshops nationally. Her work is represented by Gleason Fine Art in Portland, Maine, and Mason Fine Art in Atlanta, Georgia.