Ion Art: Arts and Culture magazine

Artist Profile:

by Zeek Taylor

“Still life in combination with landscape is the subject that currently holds my fascination,” said Denise Ryan, Eureka Springs Artist known nationally for her work in oil and pastel. The work, rendered with precise realism, leads the viewer to believe the unlikely scenarios she creates could actually exist.

The strong use of color in Ryan’s landscapes sets a definitive mood for each painting and serves as a backdrop for deftly executed still life objects. In the forefront, many pieces contain luminous fabrics that support favorite subjects, ranging from flowers to fruits to vegetables. At times she might add a bird, lizard, frog or insect to keep the work from being totally “still.”

Denise attributes her style to the influence of the Dutch painters. The ability of the Dutch to render realistic light effects on finely crafted still life surfaces has been mastered by Ryan. Her selection of subject matter, particularly the table objects, detailed folded fabric, flowers and an occasional deceased animal, is strongly reminiscent of works from the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age, especially works of artists of the Hague, Amsterdam and Leiden.

Added to the formula is occasional usage of trompe l’oeil, which results in work so distinctive that viewers immediately recognize each piece as a “Denise Ryan.”

Although it is still strongly imprinted with unmistakable Ryan style, her portrait work has a more traditional look with less involved compositions. In the figurative pieces, she places more direct emphasis on the subject, creating a focus that lends itself to successful portraiture. Most of her portraits are rendered in oil and pastel, but at times she uses pencil, pen and ink, charcoal or watercolor. All portraits by Denise are done as commissioned pieces.

Born and raised in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania, Denise was influenced and encouraged by her mother, Elizabeth Ryan, an accomplished painter in her own right, who earned her degree from Temple University’s Tyler School of Fine Art.

As a child, Denise learned much from hours of observing her mother paint and draw. At the age of ten, she began accompanying her mother to life drawing classes at the Fleischer Art Memorial in Philadelphia, and she tagged along on many landscape painting expeditions and forays to museums. Later, Ryan earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from her mother’s alma mater and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale.

Ryan taught at the Governor’s School of the Arts at Trenton State College, where she also served as Assistant Director. As an Assistant Professor at both Moore College of Art in Philadelphia and Stockton State College in Pomona, New Jersey, she taught drawing, design and painting.

In 1989, mother and daughter both moved to Eureka Springs, where Ryan family roots already ran 100 years deep. Before passing away in 2003, Elizabeth Ryan designed the stained glass windows and painted the mural adorning Eureka Springs’ Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church, a building the Ryans’ ancestors helped build more than a century earlier.

Ryan is currently in her 19th year of teaching art classes for the Art Guild of Holiday Island, Arkansas. She is once again on the summer roster of teachers for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts summer workshops where she will conduct a class in the “magic of still life in oil or acrylic.”

Her husband, Calvin Cotton, owner of Geographics Printing Company, reproduces her work as fine art giclées. Because of the intricate detailed style of Ryan’s paintings, she produces only a limited number of originals each year. Releasing the work as signed and numbered limited editions has allowed expansion of her market to an audience on a national scale. Denise hand embellishes with paint the canvas giclées, making each a one-of-akind piece.

Denise maintains a working studio in the heart of Eureka Springs’ historic district. A disciplined painter, she works daily in a space flooded with natural light from large windows where she enjoys a pleasing view of the surrounding woods and Victorian homes.

“When I moved to Eureka Springs I had no notion of the town as an artists community,” Ryan said, “but we – my mother and I – simply loved the city and area. It has been delightful to watch this beautiful town grow as an artists colony and a destination for the arts.”