b. 1965

 

Liza Ryan uses her work in photography, video, and mixed media to address a variety of intellectual pursuits. Her themes include the presentation and disruption of the visual narrative; the fluid psychological relationship between real and imagined spaces; processes of release, dispersal, and disappearance; and a fantastical, more intimate union between man and nature.  She has been heavily influenced by the storytelling tradition of the American South, as well as years of research into psychology, feminism, and nature.  This last subject she views not in terms of the peace and serenity with which urban and suburban dwellers so often associate it, but rather as a primal arena of power, ruthlessness, and survival – as well as a fertile ground for metaphor. 

 

Liza Ryan was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1965.  Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.  She was one of three American artists (along with Julie Mehretu and Sharon Lockhart) selected to exhibit at the Biennale of Sydney (2006), for which she created the large-scale mixed media installation Something tells me she didn’t look back.  Ryan has been included in museum exhibitions at The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Miami Art Museum.   Most recently, Ryan had a solo exhibition at Reed College’s Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery in 2009 (for which a catalog was published).  She has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Herter Gallery at the University of Massachusetts and Hollins University Art Gallery in Virginia. In 2009, The J. Paul Getty Museum announced its acquisition through a gift from Manfred and Hanna Heiting of a thirty-foot long multi-paneled photographic work.   Her work is also held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Maison Européen de la Photographie, Paris, among others.  Ryan lives and works in Los Angeles.

 

Bio Info

1994

Master of Fine Arts, California State University at Fullerton

1987

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire

 

Solo Exhibitions

2012

"Fragment", Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Hollins, University, Roanoke, Virginia

"Rare Bloom", Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Santa Monica, California

2010

"Exploded Moment", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica

2009

"Spill", Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon (catalog)

2008

"New Work: Video and Photographs", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

2007

"Motion Pictures", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California (catalog)

2006

"Fluid", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

G-C Arts, Las Vegas, NV

2004

William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

2003

"Surface", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

2001

"Weight of Light", Herter Gallery, University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center, Amherst, Massachusetts

Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California

1999

"Witness", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California

1998

Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Hollins University Art Gallery, Roanoke, Virginia

 

Group Exhibitions

2010

"State of Mind: A California Invitational", Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California

2006

Biennale of Sydney: Zones of Contact, Australia

2005

"Weather", William Griffin Gallery, Santa Monica, California

2003

Contemporary Photography from The Manfred Heiting Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

"Soft Machines", The Brewery, Los Angeles, California

2002

New Acquisitions/New Work/New Directions 3: Contemporary Selections, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California

The NSM Vie Foundation and the MEP: Supporting Young Photography, Soobin Art Gallery, Singapore

Amerika-Europa, Ein kunslerischer Dialog, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany

2001

Portretten & Stillevens: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

"Double Visions: Photographs from the Strauss Collection", University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, California

"Inhabiting", Galerie Lelong, New York

2000

California Invitational, Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco, California

University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, California

TCM at 12: Recent Acquisitions, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii

Summer Group Exhibition, Galerie Lelong, New York

"Self/Developed", Eyre/Moore Gallery, Seattle, Washington

1999

"Domestic Pleasures", Galerie Lelong, New York

"Threshold and Domestic Space", Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia

"Body/Language", SF Camerawork, San Francisco, California

"Sig-alert", Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona

1998

"Degrees of Stillness: Images from the Manfred Heiting Collection", SSK Foundation - August Sander Archive, Cologne, Germany

"Personal Visions", Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida

"Lightscapes", Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art, Las Vegas, Nevada

"Spread", Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California

1997

"Luminous Code", Texas Fine Arts, Austin, Texas. Curated by Jennifer Blessing, curator at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1996

"Current Fictions: Work by Emerging Artists", Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California

Documenta, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, California

"Pursuing the Undocumentable", Los Angeles, California. Curated by Sue Spaid.

1995

"P.L.A.N: Photography Los Angeles Now", Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California