Barbara Ryman - Fragment

Barbara Ryman - FRAGMENT Fragmenting mind, fragmenting world, fragmenting society, fragments of memory, disintegration, integration and nostalgia. Can what is broken be mended? Can it be transformed? These are the somewhat disordered thoughts running behind the production of this series of pendants; how apt! They arise from watching the current politics, global warming dramas and my own longing for a simpler past and future. I"m finding the world pretty challenging right now. The din of self-satisfied and strident voices, filled with venom, hatred and conviction, makes this creative soul despair. Its sends me off in search of silence, space, horizons, sensations; little truths that rise above the cacophony. My series of pendants developed from overlaying an image of dried mud patterns of a desiccated waterhole over a shallow bowl. The bowl was then dissected and each piece became a fragment on which to work. When I studied at art school, before following a path into enamelling and jewellery, I loved drawing with pencil on paper. My creative life seems to have an underground river that connects my past and present. Themes and images return and present themselves in new forms for re-examination through my current understanding, perception and knowledge. There is a comforting continuum. Bringing the drawing technique to my jewellery and the larger scale of the vessel has been both challenging and immensely enjoyable. (continuum - a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct.) About the Artist - Barbara Ryman has been a leading influence in Australian Contemporary jewellery for more than 30 years, primarily for her exquisite and extraordinary work with vitreous enamel. In recent years she has spent much time in Japan studying Japanese enameling techniques with master craftsman and mentor, Tsuyura Sakurai. These influences have provided many new directions of exploration that can be seen in Ryman"s work (or Barbara). "As a mature artist, I have sometimes found this challenging, but it has also been inspirational and transformative. I hope I will always take such leaps of faith". She has exhibited consistently both internationally and nationally and her work is held in both public and private collections e.g. Australian National Gallery, Canberra; the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Enamelling - Salou, Spain to name a few.