Liza Ryan

Liza Ryan (born 1965) is an American contemporary artist living in Los Angeles, CA. Her work is held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art among others.

Ryan earned a BA in English Literature at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), attended the San Francisco Art Institute and received an MFA in photography from California State University, Fullerton.

Liza Ryan’s decades-long artistic practice utilizes photography, video and mixed media to examine hierarchical power structures inherent to western culture.

Her work often presents a symbiotic relationship between the human and natural worlds, supporting her convictions about interspecies solidarity.

Ryan’s work begins with research: readings including literature, poetry, ecology, biology, feminism and the environment.

The merging of these interests fuels Ryan’s process of combining disparate elements.

Her practice in photography is oftentimes interrupted by subtle mark-making with gold acrylic, ink, charcoal and pencil directly on the printed image.

The introduction of the artist’s hand to the photograph highlights the distinctive properties of her subjects.

The mark-making is also symbolic of the care the artist has for her subjects and may be found in the form of a line highlighting the winding curve of an animal or the faintness of a horizon line.

A recent series, The Unreal Real, emerged from the artist’s 2016 trip to Antarctica where she had the opportunity to explore the South Pole alongside a group of esteemed scientists and ecologists.

Their interactions combined with her physical immersion into the environment activated a profound inner recalibration, as she witnessed Antarctica come alive.

As a result of this experience, Ryan became committed to protecting vulnerable places and life forms, ultimately shifting the primary focus of her practice from exploring the nuances of the human condition to a deep examination of current issues through subjects that have resonance beyond their literal representation.

Using pencil, charcoal, gouache and paint, she made subtle interventions on the pictures, sometimes drawing mirror images of the ice formations, other times intensifying shading or deepening the colour of the sky.

“Tracing became a form of going back there,” Ryan says.

“Something about the tactile nature of following the line, the connection of the pencil to the paper, you lose yourself.

It’s easier to remember.

Ryan carried her findings from Antarctica over to her current body of work which focuses on the octopus, as subject and the vehicle through which to examine prejudice and privilege.

She was drawn to this particular cephalopod because octopuses possess extremely advanced cognitive abilities yet share little in common physically with humans and other mammals, making them the ultimate intelligent “other”.

Although it has been proven that octopuses feel pain, have distinct personalities, retain memory, problem solve, and use tools, their classification as an invertebrate deems them unworthy of ethical treatment or any sort of legal protection when being studied in laboratories or being prepared for human consumption.

Ryan’s fieldwork began by interacting with octopuses and scientists in aquariums and labs around the country.

While working with octopuses the artist observed: “Octopuses change color, shape and texture, they stare at you and study your movements with curiosity and intelligence, they move with fluid, hypnotic grace.

Eight arms, all containing neurons, and possibly independent thinking, snake around seemingly of their own volition.

They are silent.”

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France

Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

The Rosenkrantz Foundation, Berlin, Germany

The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH