CR Blog
You Can Still Do a Lot With a Small Brain
Posted by Mark Sinclair, 21 December 2009, 9:22 Permalink Comments (9)

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.


9 Comments
as with alot of work like this the scale has really made the difference for me, not a massive fan of his work usually but these larger pieces look really nice in context
2009-12-21 11:20:38
i was down at YSP a couple of weeks ago - there's some cracking stuff there in the other galleries too.
it'll be especially lovely with a light covering of snow....
2009-12-21 14:15:00
There are a bunch of new craft workshops at the YSP this christmas. Suitable for over 16’s...
2009-12-21 14:43:43
what i want to know, is how often he goes wrong? does he re-think on his feet or literally screw it up and kick it in the bin?!
next time you speak to him CR, can you ask him please?
2009-12-22 15:38:12
Brilliant stuff.
2010-01-05 18:22:19
great work. I like the black stencils on white paper the best.
2010-01-06 18:12:12
A direct link for anyone wishing to buy the book (Jeremy Mills Publishing):
http://www.jeremymillspublishing.co.uk/shop2/item.php?s=2&i=g1rr
2010-01-07 00:09:28
I wonder how many millimetre thin sellotape strands he has stuck on the back.
(how did the fantastically irrelevant and blatant spamming from 'Michael' get through? (above))
2010-01-07 18:10:51
@ Moany
Thanks for alerting me to that, I must have pressed the wrong button there. I'll remove Michael's polite but misplaced comment forthwith.
2010-01-07 18:29:00
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Mark Sinclair