@paulryan88 ‘The Island’ Opening this Thursday 6-8pm in the gallery. Paul Ryan lives and works north of Wollongong in Dharawal county. It is a dramatic place – the great Illawarra escarpment crashes into the breaking swells of the Pacific Ocean the ever-changing light and weather patterns are apparent and integral to all who live there. It is the constant Ryan’s oeuvre. From the tonality of his palette to the visual power of the swaths of oil that echo the power of the sea. Ryan has for decades navigated the landscape, drawing inhabitants from history and placing, or misplacing them in his landscape. Politically charged with a wicked wit- his imaging of the sartorial elegant colonial interlopers - sardonically rendered in oil has become a mainstay of contemporary Australian visual culture.