DREAM TIME IN THE WORKS BY VIRGINIA RYAN

Interview by Dores Sacquegna with Australian artist Virginia Ryan

DREAM TIME IN THE WORKS BY VIRGINIA RYAN

Virginia Ryan works evoke dreamscapes and masterfully blend elements of traditional and multicultural design with contemporary flair. Between memory and loss, between the ways of weaving and transforming, Ryan conveys messages of peace, protection and reconciliation with the earth. 

D.S. Your dual roles as an artist and art therapist have made you a person who goes beyond appearances, searching for a language in symbology that translates into ingenious and seductive contemporary works of art. How much do your Australian origins resonate in your work?

V.R.My Australian origins - my great-grandparents were originally from Ireland - are the foundation of my entire artistic journey. Although I was educated in European and American art history, I have always had an eye for the aesthetics and the many manifestations of indigenous peoples, guardians of the earth and of the 'dream time'. A parallel world, a universe of signs that I observed from the outside but with a certain familiarity.

D.S. You are now an Italian citizen based in Trevi, but you have travelled and lived in various places around the world, interacting with artistic communities and others. I'm thinking of countries like Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where you often return and where you have also created the Foundation of Contemporary Art. How did this path come about and what do you look for in African art?

V.R.The path developed for personal and professional reasons and the encounter between me and the other “art-worlds” was extraordinarily enriching and stimulating. The long years spent in West Africa gave me the opportunity to work in situ and to meet contemporary artists who are now internationally recognized. I am more interested in social relations than in my own inner self: I observe, explore, transform. The establishment of the FCA in Ghana was a team effort, today it is very active and continues to grow hand in hand with other contemporary art organizations in that area, with excellent results.

D.S. Your work can be summarized in the concepts of making and unmaking, weaving and transforming. You are an artist linked to “craftsmanship”. What is your vision?

V.R. I'm fascinated by craftsmanship and it's part of me. During my travels, I've had the opportunity to meet artisans, and I've always appreciated the poetry of everyday life, the hands that weave and work in silence as if suspended in an expanded space-time. I feel in tune with the times that leave room for other perspectives, not only Eurocentric ones: my vision of art is expansive and assumes a position of fluidity in processes and meaning.

D.S. What do you think about the social role of women and artists who use AI?

V.R.When I was at the Academy of Fine Arts in Canberra, Australia, the first course I took was on 'Women and Art'. This is a subject that I have been following since the 70s and although more women artists have achieved recognition for their work, our times teach us that it is easy to go backwards. The AI world is another rapidly expanding art world. I consider myself an artist who does work that a computer, for now, cannot do.

D.S. In addition to the series of installations Forms of Protection, you are present at the exhibition with the video Sanctuary made with Oliver Ryan in the Balmoral Forest in Australia, the ancient place inhabited by the Aborigines. If you could go back in time, who are the artists you would like to meet, due to their similarity of thought?

V.R. I would have liked to meet writers like Virginia Woolf and James Baldwin, politicians like Kwame Nkrumah and artists like Louise Bourgeois and Ukrainian American Janet Sobel, the inventor of drip-painting (noticed by Jackson Pollock and we all know how that story ended). There are many artists I would have liked to meet and, in many cases, also thank.

D.S.What are your plans?

V.R. I have exhibitions planned for 2025 and 2026. Since I've been working a lot in India over the last two years, I'm integrating the aspect of the “divine feminine” into my research. I will continue to work as an art therapist with immigrants who have arrived in Italy: another world full of stories and courage.

Short bio - Virginia Ryan was born in Australia and she is an Italian citizen since 1982. She has exhibited at the Intramoenia Extrart project by Giusy Caroppo in the castles of Puglia under the scientific direction by Achille Bonito Oliva, at Macro Museum in Rome, Venice Biennale, Pino Pascali Foundation in Polignano a Mare, the Dakar Biennale to name a few.  In Ghana she co-founded the influential FCA Foundation of Contemporary Art. In Lecce for WEAVING DREAMS, LIVING TIME are the shield/drum installations from the series of “Forms of Protection” and the collaborative video “Sanctuary” (with musician Oliver Ryan) filmed in the Balmoral Forest in Australia, a place originally inhabited by Aboriginal peoples.