"Colour is the most important element in my work and my current use of it stems from my earliest studies at art school".
Andrew Ryder lives and works in London, having occupied the same studio in West London since 1977. Ryder studied at Goldsmiths, University of London; Winchester School of Art; Leicester School of Art and Hammersmith College of Art, London. His multidisciplinary practice is concerned with visual experience and colour perception, extending across painting, light and kinetic sculpture. His approach is influenced by developments in art making in the 1960s, particularly the ZERO group formed in Dusseldorf in 1957 and the Paris-based Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), artists who explored the use of light and motion to open up new forms of perception.
Profound experiments that use the seduction of light, colour and movement to extend visual perception beyond a viewer’s previous experiences, Ryder’s practice shares analogues conceptual terrain with the work of Otto Piene, Heinz Maacke, Francois Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesus Raphael Soto, artists for whom physical and perceptual phenomena are key.
Investigating the physical or perceptual relationships between differing elements, Ryder’s work often references the body or the natural world, incorporating heat dissipating devices, insulated electrical circuits, or the physical expression of balance and weight. His early work was kinetic, beginning with an interest in the movement of the sun, air and reflected colour. Later he experimented with miniature electric motors, LED lights, solid-state electronics, programmable microcontrollers and individually magnetised semi-mobile elements which were incorporated into suspended kinetic arrays. More recent work is concerned with space and depth differentiation and twilight colour perception, specifically an exploration of the Purkinje Shift, a colour perception anomaly that occurs at dusk. These new large-scale wall-mounted works integrate depth and space with differential illumination using three-dimensional LED light arrays that project large visual events onto the surrounding supporting walls.
Reduced to essential form and function, Ryder’s work communicates directly and intuitively with the viewer, often invoking the seasons; from the amber tones of Autumn to the crips blues of Winter, the fresh notes of Spring or the warm chromatics of high Summer. Ryder describes these objects as conceptual muscles. Almost machine-like, each piece is a nexus of constrained phenomena anchored by colour, light and movement.
Andrew Ryder's work has featured in numerous exhibitions and art fairs in the UK, USA, Far East and South East Asia, and is held in private collections internationally.