Alexander Ryrie b.1995 in Eora | Sydney. Works in Melbourne | Naarm on Wurundjeri Country.
I am interested in humans. In the strange feelings we have and the grotesque bodies we inhabit. I take inspiration from caricature and cartoons, taking their exaggeration and energy and applying it to different mediums. The results are installations which are comprised of videos, sculptures, paintings and textile artworks. These are populated with sinister, sympathetic and oddball characters who exist in a world of missed trains, polemic rants and googley eyes.
Navigating the strange and absurd within everyday life, my perspective is filtered through the lens of dark humour. Disembodied limbs perform domestic chores, faces smile and struggle, toes stick out from holey socks. I embrace the cartooning tendency of unrealistic bodily forms and bright colours.
I build a world of fantastical characters, a rogue’s gallery of the local pub, town hall and house down the road. At times laughable, often melancholic and always bizarre, this who’s who of “who’s that?” might just be familiar to you.
Selected Exhibitions & Installations
2024 From Where I Stand, VCA Artspace, Melbourne
Changing Room, Motley Bauhaus, Melbourne
2023 Double Denim, VCA Artspace, Melbourne
Capers Auction, Capers Bar, Melbourne
Fifty Squared, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
2022 Grey Foundations, Way Out Artspace, Kandos
2020 Comparing Mythologies, AD Space, Sydney
2019 The Jenny Birt Award for Painting (Winner), AD Space, Sydney
Tim Olsen Drawing Prize (Finalist), AD Space, Sydney
Education
2024 Master of Contemporary Art, Victorian College of the Arts
2019 Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours, University of New South Wales: Art and Design