Cordy Ryman is an abstract artist that fuses painting and sculpture using humble materials, most often acrylic paint and wood. He’s known for large-scale, site-specific installations that can be broken down into smaller components that stand alone. Ryman’s works are always responsive, reacting to their environments, their own layered histories and to one another. He maintains a resourceful playfulness in his practice, with an evolving vocabulary of form and color that informs the consistent freshness of his work. Unpretentious and playful, he respects the unfinished and elevates the imperfect with an approach that is simple, physical and elegant.My work is almost always abstract. The last few years I’ve been painting mostly on wood, and the work is primarily about art itself. For lack of a better description, it’s Art about Art.It’s about the act of looking, the process of working, the endless and mutable variations involved in curating. And the joys, magic and fulfillment in any creative act.
TELL US ABOUT A PARTICULAR WORK THAT YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF?
The last few years I’ve been working periodically on a 26 x 17 foot wall comprised of and completely covered by over 340 or so individual wood panels. Each panel is simultaneously an individual entity yet also part of a communal whole. The works are fluid and their positions shift from day to day or month to month. Some pieces spin off, go out in the world as entities of their own, and others drop in to fill and heal the empty spot. It’s been an amazing ongoing process. It’s like a giant “mother” to my work. Anytime I’m stuck I can always find something that needs to be done on that wall.
WHAT IMPACT DO YOU THINK YOUR ART HAS ON AUDIENCES AND WHY YOU BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE EXPERIENCED?
I’m aware that I’m using and working within a specific language. And I accept that my work, and the materials I work with, will be most interesting to those already interested or wanting to be interested in that language. Other than that, I would like it if people would be open to seeing joy, wonder and excitement. If someone is open and interested, I think there is a lot to discover.
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGES IN WHAT YOU DO AND HOW HAVE YOU, OR DO YOU OVERCOME THEM?
I think the biggest challenge for any artist is to maintain a strong and consistent art practice, which is often solitary and sometimes detached from the real world. It can be very impractical. The difficulty is in merging that impractical need to create art with an otherwise practical way of living, so that you don’t fall apart emotionally/psychologically or financially in the process.
It’s hard to have a strong studio practice if your other life can’t fill in whatever gaps are left. Like anyone, regardless of circumstance, I’ve had my own puzzle to solve in relation to this. Some obstacles are clear and obvious, but a lot of it is an inside job.
WHERE CAN PEOPLE LEARN MORE ABOUT YOU ONLINE?
Cordyryman.com
CordyRymanStudio (instagram)
Artcake.org