LIZA RYAN:  EXPLODED MOMENT

September 10th - November 6th, 2010

Opening Reception:  Friday, September 10th, 7 - 9pm

William Griffin Gallery is pleased to announce Exploded Moment, its ninth exhibition by Liza Ryan.  In the last several years, Ryan’s work has moved beyond photography in its traditional sense. By cutting, collage, and drawing on her photographs, she expands the possibilities of the photographic image. 

In her latest body of work, Ryan explores how heightened awareness can transform our idea of “reality”.  Ryan often uses her camera like a microscope and crystallizes seconds that would normally go unobserved. These “small” occurrences can be too fleeting to rise from the morass of visual information surrounding them. Exploded Moment, the piece from which the series and the exhibition draw their name, is pieced together out of strips cut from photographs. It appears abstract at first, but upon close inspection, representational details emerge. The piece is scaled to the height of Ryan’s car window but stretches far beyond its width. The experience of driving fast and being bombarded with visual stimuli—none of which is clearly visible at the time—simulates in miniature the experience of our fast-paced lives.