Contexual studies, essay 2

Heather Boon

Liz B

Word C:513

Essay Two

This term I have been looking at the artist called Robert Ryan. He specialises in collage, paper cut and screen printing.  Ryan did his foundation at Birmingham Poly, fine art at Trent Poly and printmaking at RCA. Ryan has been called an illustrator, a graphic designer and a artist but he himself doesn’t like to pigeon-hole his work and say’s that he’s happy to just have his name spelt right. Printmaking was initially his first love but when he no longer had access to a printmaking studio he started searching for something new to do and began to work with folding paper. To start with he did symmetrical cut outs but then he started to cut out words as well. He uses a 15 or 10a Swann Morton  scalpel blade to craft his work. Sometimes he uses laser cutting techniques to cut wood, acrylic and steel. He also uses this technique for things such as show invitations and more recently when he was asked to dress Liberty’s Christmas window. He say’s he loves post- war pre 60’s illustration and has been influenced by this and people such as Eric Gill. He likes the tailored aspect of his work as he feels it has a timeless quality and sharper silhouette.  His work is influenced by his emotions and what is happening around him at the time. He looks at other people and tries to emphasise with them, using their perceived emotions in his work. He likens it to being a writer and puts himself in their shoes. The story-telling that is present in much of Robert's work is perfectly illustrated by his recent book, 'This Is For You', the dreamy tale of a man who has lost his place in the world who takes a magical papercut journey of rediscovery.

Ryan’s work interests me in the sense that he’s work with collage, I think that collages works well in my work as I can keep layering my work to build up texture and form. Ryan doesn’t tend to use a lot of colour in one piece of work, and sticking to a limited colour draws my attention to the initial thought of the idea of people’s emotions or feelings. Ryan said that he was drawn in the first instance to express himself though printmaking and for similar reasons I feel the same pull to this form of creative expression.

 I have made a collage using a newsprint message just like Ryan did but in my own words ‘I think I love you’. Ryan’s idea was that the words read ‘I think that you are gorgeous’. I used cardboard underneath to make the cut out more interesting. I found his idea very thoughtful and creative. The idea of bold black letters on a black and white background sets the focus on the text and draws the eye to the negative spaces. My work is a story within a story showing new thoughts and words by recycling words and adding new thoughts.  This creates a different dimension to the original words which gives them new meaning.

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