Works By Ryder

It has to be duly observed that Ryder might well find himself disenfranchised from the stresses and strains of a zippy modern world – and moreover that the column inches we allude to were in fact devoid of actual fact and instead reserved for the stunningly evocative, graphic fiction (therein, Ryder’s compositions) – on account of actual information on the artist himself being best described as ‘thin on the ground’.

Instead the closest we get (and subsequently, you get) to learning about the man behind such sublimely creative studies such as ‘Tip-Toeing Through Autumn, Under the Milk Moon’ and ‘Homeward Bound’ to name but three, is a theoretical (and occasionally surreal) alternate profile based on the thoughts and logic of not Ryder, but a literary critic, courtesy of the artist’s publishers, Washington Green. Nor did an internet trawl go any further in revealing anything substantial about Ryder, alas. So on that basis – or at least until such time as we’re privy to cold, hard facts such as birthdates, places of birth, schooling, higher education, artist inspirations, approach to craft, etc – you can either marvel at Ryder’s mesmerising conceptual studies hereabouts, or in the meantime read the musings of Roland Barthes.

Suffice to say that the enigmatic painter who’s created this breath-taking art under the alias of Ryder is fundamentally inviting judgement on his work (and we have it on good authority that Ryder is a ‘he’) to be based exclusively on its merit as an individual and/or collective piece of art; as opposed to an existing profile or any existing preconceptions regarding the exponent responsible.
Ryder’s hallmark fantastical visual worlds consist of a cornucopia of animal characters and landscapes afforded whimsical vistas and melancholy panoramas in which they’re pictorially pitched, which in themselves project a sense of freedom and euphoria. Typically painted in rich and intense blues, sporadically broken by the advent of warm sunset hues and saturations, Ryder’s work to date manifests truly captivating scenes which effortlessly transport the viewer to a place where midnight adventures become a lived reality.

Returning to the moot point of Ryder’s perplexing yet fascinating assumed identity and unwillingness to expose anything of himself at this juncture and the more we think about it he may just have a point. Whether people are discussing books, movies or indeed, art, nine times out of ten the creative perpetuators are pre-judged based on pre-determined factors, and as a result of which can easily find their signature works being misinterpreted or taken out of context before they’re even observed. Maybe we should just think how refreshing it is for an artist to put their work out there with no preconceptions allowing people to arrive at an unbiased decision.

Going back to the aforementioned Roland Barthes in summary of this Ryder bio that isn’t, and in 2002, the world famous Pompidou Centre in Paris devoted a headline exhibition not to an artist but to a literary critic, and that critic was Roland Barthes. For the purposes of penetrating the veneer of mystique around Ryder, we must take as our reference text Barthes’ critical essay entitled ‘Death of the Author’. In it, Barthes surmises that one must disengage with the author to appreciate text in its truest form. The very same ethos applies to our most organic and unsolicited approach to art, thus Ryder is essence being viewed as no more, no less than a name on a piece of paper. No artist biography to influence your impressions, just the art laid bare. As Barthes stated, “It is language which speaks, not the author” and so we have given Ryder a voice, and allowed the art to do the talking.