I work with physical and perceptual phenomena intending to communicate directly and intuitively with my audience. The essential reason to be of each piece is usually a comparative functional relationship between constrained elements. An embedded concept like a physical muscle or the workings of a machine. The roots of this flow consistently from work done over many years. A piece is a nexus of constrained phenomena anchored by a passion for colour, light and movement.

I like to think that I work upon the visual perceptual frontier and with each successive piece I extend that frontier. Once I have a decisive worthwhile concept I need to construct the piece to see what will happen. Each piece is an experiment. I like to think what I make is to a degree absolutist and a clear statement of often simple phenomena. I am not seeking a social context or comment or to illustrate a political posture. I am seeking with each successive piece a clear step forward to extend the frontier of visual passion and experience.

Andrew Ryder 2018

Exhibitions at Gallery 286

• 2018
• 2016
• 2015
• 2013
• 2008
• 2006

Images of work from Andrew Ryder’s collection

Exhibitions at Gallery 286

• 2018
• 2016
• 2015
• 2013
• 2008
• 2006

Images of work from Andrew Ryder’s collection

Holograms

by August Muth and Dora Tass

8th January – 20th February 2015

Exhibitions at Gallery 286

• 2018
• 2016
• 2015
• 2013
• 2008
• 2006

Images of work from Andrew Ryder’s collection

Work from 2019-21

Work from 2014

Work from 2011-12

Work from 2010

Work from 2009

Work from 2007

Exhibitions at Gallery 286

• 2018
• 2016
• 2015
• 2013
• 2008
• 2006

Images of work from Andrew Ryder’s collection

As an art student in the 1970’s I took an interest in the kinetic art of the 1960’s. This included the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel in Paris and the Zero group in Düsseldorf.

The work is about the feeling of tangible experience and our elemental responses to movement and colour. These basic responses carry with them a complex notion of relative judgments. The way light moves over a surface or a breeze travels through a cornfield, the sudden spasm of a deadly fish or the hypnotic coil of a snake. These are the most elementary and primitive of responses. At a deeper level I work with concealment, ambiguity and potential threat.
My use of colour comes from an interest in twilight at the end of a summer day. Perception is in transition between day and night. Our vision becomes more sensitive to blue and green as we increasingly rely upon peripheral vision. As we evolved this was a dangerous time when our perceptions needed to be clear. The precision of day vision fades and only indistinct clues tell us what lurks in the shadows.

The unique ability of the human brain to hypothesize works hard to construct a reliable picture. Today it is mysterious and exciting. It is the time of dreams, imagination and twilight rendezvous. It is the time when the primitive brain works well. Our senses are alive to feelings, smells and subtle sounds.

I employ spatial illusion in which an illuminated, coloured array, pushes forward into space above a contrasting background of ambiguous depth. In previous work the array was comprised of semi-mobile elements of differing lengths. This was set in motion by a series pulses. The perceptual uncertainty was enhanced by the differential rates of movement within the array.

My current my work is static and my interest is in deception, evasion, concealment and confusion within, and beneath the field of illumination.

© Andrew Ryder 2007

Exhibitions at Gallery 286

• 2018
• 2016
• 2015
• 2013
• 2008
• 2006

Images of work from Andrew Ryder’s collection