Ajean L. Ryan - "Molten Amaranths," "Atop," "Lonely Betters," "Finned and Fleshed," and "Last Storm"

My name is Ajean Ryan, she/her pronouns. And I will be talking about my Vermilion ink on paper drawings in this exhibition. It was during the pandemic I developed an interest in pen and ink drawings and because I had to work smaller and more intimate in size and scale, I began to research and to quickly fall in love with Vermillion ink and how since ancient times it has been used in various cultures and across the globe Vermillion is neither red or orange. Its color is derived from toxic chemicals like Mercury, and thus it makes it really rare and it's a dangerous color to make as well. Because historically it was so temperamental in nature and that it could blacken and react in sunlight, the artists using and making it would sometimes go insane and and have to be committed.

It had a certain impact in the earliest surreal images in ancient and early modern art that used for million as a paint. And then in the 1600s, artists and chemists developed less toxic methods to make it, and then it became a very popular ink to use both in Asia and in Europe.

This period in which Vermillion was really popular didn't last long as cadmium red was developed and artists decided that they liked cadmium red better. But Vermillion is still something to me that that feels very special in that it is as I said, neither red or orange, but somewhere in between and conveys a warmth hat is really unique.

In contemporary times it's, you know, pen and ink is fairly traditional using a quill and changing out it, the nibs and dipping it in he Inkwell. There's a certain omance to it and a uniqueness, but I really love it because of it, the inks origin, which alls somewhere between Asian and European.

As a contemporary Asian, American artists, I've sought for, for a while, and through my materials for materials that bridge both regions and histories of the East and the West. I believe in mining the richness of materials, and the act of mining or mining for something conjures ideas of iscovery through xcavating and a continual probing and process. If taken literally, it means a sort of kind of proprietary claiming.

I like to believe that this material feels like it's mine. It has found a home with me and in me, and these images in many ways are based through landscape and nature, but they are also somewhere between what I like to believe are Eastern traditions and Western traditions and trying to find some poetic forms within the drawing.

Drawing for me, has always been a kind of reclamation of space. Of form, of shape, of line, of a material. And making my presence felt within that space. There's a beautiful quote by Rebecca olnit, and she says "some women get erased a little, at a time, some all at once, some reappear, every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear, she struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the ights of an, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story in words or images is already a victory, already a revolt." I believe this quote embodies the very ct of drawing as an act of defiance; an act of eauty, and act of victory. And I hope you can see through my marks and my meandering thoughts made visible on the page that I I try to embellish and embrace drawing in my own way. Thank you.