Ryan Feeney

MFA Alumnus
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Off Season, 20 in x 30 in, Digital C Print © 2012

Leaning Tower, Fixed, 27 in x 16 in, Digital C Prints © 2012

Artist Statement: Ryan Feeney

My interests as an artist have always laid in the fascination with the authority that images have on our sense of reality.  It is through the visual culture that we learn how to make sense of, and ultimately navigate our way through, the perceived world.  In my most recent work, I am particularly interested in how I have come to form a personal notion of the idealistic through my relationship with past experiences, personal and collective memory and popular culture.

Through engaging with vernacular objects and images from my own cultural identity, these works map out the imaginary line that defines my understanding of concepts such as ‘success’ and ‘failure’.  There are anxieties and tensions that are inherent in the constant struggle to reconcile my reality with what I believe my reality should be. In my work, I unpack this complicated relationship in order to gain a stronger understanding of the origin of this tension.  In doing so, the work creates a discourse about the role that cultural elements have on how we function in the natural and social world.