Jane Ryan's acrylic landscape paintings on exhibit at UNE
Acrylic landscape paintings by Maine artist Jane Ryan reflect her deep commitment to a rural life and landscape that seem to be disappearing.
Ryan’s work is on display in the Campus Center on the University of New England’s Biddeford campus. The exhibition runs February 1 through March 1, 2009, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Ryan was born in Concord, New Hampshire. Her father was a local housepainter who kept an easel set up in the back of his truck so he could paint landscapes in spare moments. She began to explore her own interests as an artist after twenty years as a psychotherapist in rural Maine.
She graduated from Emmanuel College in Boston in 1972 and received a master’s in counseling in 1977. She took a drawing class in 1996, where she quickly found herself “desperate for color.” Shortly thereafter, she began her life as a full-time artist.
Ryan sees all organic form as landscape. Her most recent works are paintings of places that she did in pastel years ago, with a renewed focus on the emotional dynamic between geometry and color.
Ryan’s work has been shown at the Chase Hill Gallery in Kennebunkport, Maine (juried exhibit, 2003), the Falmouth Public Library in 1998 and 2004, and the Fogg Gallery, Vinalhaven, Maine, as part of a group show with Seven Women Painting in 2005. She is represented by McGowan Fine Art in Concord, New Hampshire.