ROSS RYAN
PRINTMAKER & PAINTER
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The work of Ross Ryan is very visible throughout the Crinan Hotel.
Taking the sea and seafood as the inspiration for some his award winning prints and paintings, Ross has quickly forged a reputation as one of Scotland's top young artists. |
Ross Ryan works from his print studio in the Old Boathouse at Crinan Ferry. The village of Crinan is located at the Atlantic end of the Crinan Canal in Argyll, Scotland.
Fully equipped for Collograph, Monoprinting, Etching and Woodcut prints, this is where Ross creates his print series and develops new projects.
Ross set his Crinan studio up in early 2000 with assistance from the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust, Argyll and Islands Enterprise and Argyll and Bute Council which helped finance the purchase of the press and the rebuilding of the studio.
The son of renowned landscape artist Frances MacDonald, Ryan has exhibited internationally with Sotheby’s and his work is in many corporate and private collections. Ross has received the Latimer Award from the Royal Scottish Academy and the David Cargill Award from the Royal Glasgow Institute.
Full details of Ross's work can be found at www.rossryan.co.uk |
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The Herald Arts, Books, Cinema supplement
July 21 2007
WAVE POWER – ARTIST PROFILE
ROSS RYAN
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With a studio only accessibly by dinghy, it’s hardly surprising that Ross Ryan is influenced by the sea, finds Jan Patience
It’s not every artist who has to check the tides before he sets out for his studio, but saltwater rushes through Ross Ryan’s life and work like an ever-present, all-powerful force. Every morning, the artist, who was born, raised and still lives in the tiny fishing village of Crinan, on the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll, steps out of his house by the pier and rows across the loch to Crinan Ferry to start his day’s work in a converted boatshed on a deserted beach. |
By anyone’s standards it’s an unusual commute, particularly in winter when he sets off in the pouring rain and pitch darkness and returns in similar conditions, but Ross, who is also the local coastguard officer, wouldn’t have it any other way. When he’s not in the studio, he is either on a boat or restoring one, pouring his vast reserves of creative energy into The Truant, a unique Fairlie-built century-old 8m wooden racing-class yacht, left to him by his godfather.
This week, with his friend Mike Dalglish, Ross is also overseeing the inaugural Crinan Classic Boat Festival for wooden craft lovers to race, cruise and make merry. The hub of the event is the 250-year-old village of Crinan on the Atlantic side of the canal, facing the north tip of the Isle of Jura. At the centre of the festival is the famous Crinan Hotel, owned by his father Nick Ryan and his mother, the well-known landscape artist Frances MacDonald. One of the festival’s major elements is an art exhibition at the new Sea Lock Gallery, which is situated between the hotel and the adjacent coffee shop and features several high-profile artists with a link to Argyll.
A graduate of Gray’s School of Art (“I went to Aberdeen because I could surf there”), Ross specialised in printmaking and went on to win several awards for his work, including the David Cargill Award from the Royal Glasgow Institute. A major boost also came in 2001, when he was a finalist in the ArtLink@Sotheby’s International Young Art competition, which receives thousands of entrants each year from around the world. For the last 10 years his printmaking work has focused heavily on the fishing industry, offering a highly politicised view of a business beset by over-fishing.
Recently he held a sell-out solo show at Glasgow’s RGI Kelly Gallery which high-lighted a sea change in his work to include painting as well as printmaking in his repertoire. It also revealed a shift in content away from the political stance to a preoccupation with colour and the shapes of the sea.
The Herald
Arts, Books, Cinema supplement
December 16 2006
“Your guide to frames and fortune”
ROSS RYAN
With his studio in an Argyll boathouse only accessible by water, the work of printmaker and painter Ross Ryan is heavily influenced by the sea. Crinan is a constant inspiration for the graduate of Gray’s School of Art. The son of renowned landscape artist Frances MacDonald, Ryan has exhibited internationally with Sotheby’s and his work is in many corporate and private collections. In 2002, he received the Latimer Award from the Royal Scottish Academy and the David Cargill Award from the Royal Glasgow Institute. He is working on a solo show next May at the RGI and his art can be seen at the Lime Gallery, Glasgow and Crinan Fine Art, Argyll.
Prices from £400 to £1000.
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