Hasta La Ideas

Rob Ryan’s large-scale project for Yorkshire Sculpture Park is the focus of a lovely new book on his work, which offers a wider insight into his highly detailed paper art…

While Ryan’s previous collection, This Is For You, published by Sceptre two years ago, offered an extended look at his art, You Can Still Do a Lot With a Small Brain features plenty to interest any fan of Ryan’s and delight those who are new to his detailed, almost-beyond-belief paper cutouts.

Detail from this piece shown, top

Ryan uses the same type of white paper in each of his pieces (it’s a thin, smooth, large-format Bible stock) and colours each one using spray paint.

His overtly pastoral creations belie his studio’s base in east London, but Ryan unashamedly admits to being a fan of German Romanticism, elements of which flow out from his work. Moreover, every element of paper detailing is linked together, forcing a decorative pattern to emerge.

One of Ryan’s windows for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park commission

For YSP, however, Ryan has gone large-scale and created a 22 metre-wide, vinyl decal window piece (on until February 2010). Of equal interest in this supporting book though are the many photographs of his working process (meticulous use of pencil and scalpel, shown bottom).

There’s also an interview with Ryan, which adds weight to an impressive little book, offering a great insight into how he creates his delicate work.

More of Ryan’s work is at rob-ryan.blogspot.com, and the new book can be purchased from jeremymillspublishing.co.uk.