Paul Ryan "the sun that never sets"

As an abstract painter, Paul Ryan's studio practice combines a natural attentiveness to formal problems with a reflective consideration of conceptual ideas. In his new work he is developing a visual vocabulary derived from the forms of everyday commercial packaging-the unfolded shapes of the cardboard cartons and containers that hold the stuff of our necessities and desires, and the eccentric visual structures that occur when their silhouettes are combined within the picture plane. Ryan is equally interested in the conceptual implications of his source material, which have inherent associations with desire, exchange, acquisition, and consumption-activating the paintings as visual metaphors for the operations and effects of late capitalism. Ryan is a painter and art critic living and working in Staunton, Virginia where he is a Professor of Art at Mary Baldwin College. He has been a contributing editor for Art Papers Magazine since 1990 and is represented by Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.