Spotlight: Kathleen Ryan
ICA SF is pleased to spotlight a selection of work by New York-based artist Kathleen Ryan. Ryan’s larger-than-life sculptures reimagine the detritus of American life. Molding, rotting, and spoiled fruits are rendered in gems and crystal—at once beautiful and grotesque. Glittering surfaces of fruit slices invite close looking, while automotive scrap metal and found materials invite us to think differently about the materials we consume and discard.
Date
October 25, 2024–February 23, 2025
KATHLEEN RYAN
Artist Website + Artist Instagram
IMAGE
Screwdriver, 2023
Courtesy of the artist, François Ghebaly, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Kathleen Ryan, Bad Lemon (Desert), 2023. Citrine, jasper, agate, smoky quartz, quartz, carnelian, calcite, labradorite, amber, sunstone, garnet, unakite, red aventurine, tiger’s eye, tourmaline, hessonite garnet, chrysoprase, lodolite, lepidolite, serpentine, shell, freshwater pearl, glass, steel pins on coated polystyrene. 16.5 H x 17 L x 14 W inches
Kathleen Ryan, Bad Lemon (Celestial), 2023. Prehnite, aventurine, magnesite, amazonite, agate, jasper, quartz, labradorite, turquoise, ruby in zoisite, amethyst, citrine, serpentine, mother of pearl shell, freshwater pearl, onyx marble, glass, steel pins on coated polystyrene. 19 H x 26.5 L x 16.5 W inches
Kathleen Ryan, Bad Lemon (Desert), 2023 (detail). Citrine, jasper, agate, smoky quartz, quartz, carnelian, calcite, labradorite, amber, sunstone, garnet, unakite, red aventurine, tiger’s eye, tourmaline, hessonite garnet, chrysoprase, lodolite, lepidolite, serpentine, shell, freshwater pearl, glass, steel pins on coated polystyrene. 16.5 H x 17 L x 14 W inches
Kathleen Ryan (b. 1984, Los Angeles, CA) studied art and archaeology as an undergraduate at Pitzer College, and received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles under emeritus faculty Charles Ray and Catherine Opie. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, US; and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Her work is held in numerous public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, US; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US; Crystal Bridges a Museum of American Art, Bentonville, US; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, US; LAM Museum, Lisse, Netherlands; and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, US. She lives and works in New York.