MALCOLM RYAN paintings
SUNLIT SURFACES AND EFFECTS
An Online Exhibition from 1st September to 31st December 2026




Click to enlarge
This is a random selection of my paintings spanning virtually the whole of my painting career, at least from the time in the early 1970s when after about a decade I found my subject and style of working. The paintings all show sunlight effects in some form or other in each picture. Some dominate the scene others contribute. I realised years ago that there is a dichotomy in my work, an ambition, to somehow solve, but probably I have always failed. That is because I most admire paintings that are very well planned, what I think of as having a form of geometry about them, that achieve a stillness and nobility. Examples for me are the paintings of Piero della Francesca, Georges de la Tour, and Seurat, all very different. There is a painting deep in rural France I would love to see that has that attribute; The Pieta de Nouans by Jean Fouquet painted in the1450s.
The other kind of painting that I always admire is the very opposite. They are paintings where lighting effects are pushed to extremes; light dominates, and sometimes dissolves the subject. Paintings by Turner are good examples, especially his later work; also the nocturnes done by James McNeill Whistler of street locations and docksides. I think our misty isle the British climate has contributed much to such painter’s imaginings.
The first painting in this selection is Winter train journey from 1985. My first rail subject painting, which has been admired, mainly I think because it is almost an abstract. People are barely noticed. Other railway paintings rectify that. But of late I have tried to achieve a balance between sunlit shapes and my people, who are my main subject. Examples are Kitchen Scene painted in 2024 and Where are we from- Why are we here? painted this year.
Another aspect of my painting explorations to be found in this selection of sunlight, is of beams of sunlight in interiors. Probably first tried in my 1997 painting; Shafts of light – Lincoln cathedral. Since then other examples have been developed, very recently is The Ancestors painted in 2024.