Tension in Ease

Tension in Ease spans 2021 - 2025.

Details about the work and corresponding texts are below.

Ryn is currently seeking support with / for documentation.

Through the cyanotype process, Ryn responds to and makes visible internal, intuitive understandings of the self. In the space of process, which includes mark making with cyanotype chemicals, exposure, and rinsing the work, Ryn facilitates a inquiry - based dialogue between her inner self, the “I” and her outer self, the “me.” Through her work, within this space of “seeking to know,” comes what Mead describes as an “organization of the self,” a deliberative, negotiated, placement of what once was and what may come in one’s state of “being.” 

For Ryn, these “knowings,” or decisions arise through movement - driven mark making with cyanotype chemicals. Through these kinetic marks, a figure-like form consistently emerges which subtly shifts in each work. The figure, representing the inner self extending outward, is placed within abstracted contexts or experiences, also made through the artist’s mark. In seeing and being in process with these figures, Ryn inquires not only into the shifts within her “self,” but in her state of well being, asking “are we okay?” Here, Ryn writes corresponding texts which seek to respond to and make known. 

Ryn’s work holds subtle tensions as she makes space for these self - reckonings, for the minute, yet gripping terror of self - development. Her work recognizes the impermanence, a temporal quality, in our means of being. 

Ryn returns to this process with devotion, near obsession. Her repetitive, practiced patterns of mark-making have lent themselves to the development of a signature figure in her work. 

She returns to this practice as she seeks to know, and thus, care for herself.

Fear of an Unmet Need I - III


Cyanotype triptych on Arches watercolor paper

SIZE

YEAR

.

Held together by the space between I - II


Cyanotype diptych on Arches watercolor paper

I:16” x 20”

II: 16” x 20”

2021

.

Integrations

Release a purity in being, a “self,” unscathed.

“I” be tender; bring in, repair.

The “me” harmed by your misguidance;

What “we” did not know before.


Cyanotype

SIZE

2021

Security, ungiven, alive within me


Cyanotype on Arches lavis - fidelis paper 

51” x 71” 

2022


Relation in Continuum I- IV

For where do the meetings of “us” become part of our “selves?” 


Cyanotype series on Arches watercolor paper 

9” x 12” each 

2022


Deliberation of the Self

The known is indefinite, 

Dehabilitation. 


Inaction. 


Here lives a part of you, 

In need of deep repair.



Cyanotype on Fabrino Aristico watercolor paper 

22” x 30” 

2023

Reconciliation

 Hold onto the times you felt whole and at ease; 

release and grieve all else.



Cyanotype on Arches lavis - fidelis paper 

39.5” x 51.25” 

2023


Gestures towards acceptance I - II

 Perhaps it is that simple. 

We move about, 

Responding to what we need.


Cyanotype diptych on Arches watercolor paper

I 12” x 9”

II “9 x 12” 

2023

Protection of the Ease

 Reach / Ease, Release / Scrutiny


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

16” x 12” 

2024

Deliberation of Protections

 Here is a move of restoration, an embodied, operational, “self to the fullest,” at last negotiating from a place of worth.

Here also: a fear, I will emerge, fortified, nourished, tender within myself, 

And completely alone.


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

12” x 16” 

2024

Fleeting Ease


Cyanotype on tracing paper

19” x 19” 

2024 


First sighting of malleable forms

We see the figure loosen its form: bend, flex, adapt. 

A response to a care of the self. 


Though, the response may not suffice, 

Swing and a miss, rupture and collapse. 


Fear of an unmet need. 


I fear not the wrong response, 

I fear no response at all. 


The perpetuation of familiar patterns within and between myself. 

Respond, anyway.


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

12” x 16” 

2024

Second sighting of malleable forms


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

12” x 16” 

2024

A diptych of presence and ease

The marks are decisive now, clear, and aware. 

The figure tolerates shifts and unknowns, 

Relying on structures and forms that have been there

Again, and again, and again.


Cyanotype diptych on Arches watercolor paper 

12” x 16” each 

2025

The Fall

On 2.22.25, artists gathered at the Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble space to inquire into "truth" by moving through intuitive exercises led by Ayako Kato @ . Dancers went to the center of a circle and offered improvisational movement. I moved to the center and attempted to balance on one foot while lifting my leg into the air. I fell, recovering by bringing both feet close together, hunching over, wrapping my arms around my shoulders, and tucking my neck in. I felt a slight wave of panic, which was quickly released. Held by this circle of artists, sharing space in working towards “truth,” I felt detached from the need for others to know whether my fall was purposeful. I felt detached from whether others understood my "truth." 


“Truth” is inherent within you; others may not see. “Truth” lies within the body, in your own knowings and responses to the self. I’ve asked myself, what are the decisions we make in whether or how our “truth” comes to be known? Do we accept that this may never come to be? You are the only witness to your entirety. “Truth” becomes fragile if you lend it to others - With an ease and knowing within your truth, now, how do you move?


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper (fine grain, cold pressed, 300lb) 

9” x 12” 

February 2025

Fall apart, fall away

Held within your wrongdoing, responsive, nevertheless.


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

16” x 12” 

February 2025

Held within, extend without: don’t let it get away I - IV

The “me” says, “see me,” and the “I” responds the best it can. 

Feel the lightness here, the play, (as the wind blows the paper from the artist’s reach)? 


Do not fret or undermine your “self.” 


Go on, dig in. 


You will come back, you will return, 


Allow the elation.


Cyanotype series on Arches watercolor paper 

9” x 12” each 

June 2025

Fleeting Ease II - III

A tender reckoning,

Ease drifts within. 

Temporal. 

I am here, and here too, beyond myself.


Cyanotype diptych on blended polyester and nylon

II: 37.25” x 15.25”

III: 15.25 “ x 45” 

June 2025

Lift and be

Here you are again, above the page, overlooking. 

Brush in hand, you move more deliberately now (for now), 


The “I” knows the “me;” the “me” seeks the “I.” 

The figure, in negotiation, in deliberation, 

Rests, in process, at ease.


Cyanotype on Arches water color paper 

Approx. 71” x 45”

June 2025

A self at rest at last

A prolonged adjustment, a willingness to take apart, 

to be in tension. 


Release and float, 

The self knows what it knows. 


Feel and respond,

through being you become. 


Am I fortified, full, at ease - 

through being you become. 


The self knows what it knows, 

responds, adjusts. 


The search, rests. 


Consistent inquiry, presence, says

You are okay here, in being, as you endlessly become.


Cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper 

9ft x 3.7ft. 

June 2025