Palm Coast artist Richlin Burnett-Ryan featured in pop-up window exhibit

Burnett-Ryan’s current art series portrays mothers with their children; it will be on display at Ormond Memorial Art Museum’s pop-up window exhibit through Aug. 2.

By Guest Author
| 9:50 a.m. July 12, 2021

Richlin Burnett-Ryan Pop-up Exhibit Window 2. Courtesy photo

Richlin Burnett-Ryan at Work. Courtesy photo

Richlin Burnett-Ryan. Courtesy photo

Richlin Burnett-Ryan "Mother and Child." Courtesy photo

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

by: Michelle Davidson

Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens

Palm Coast artist Richlin Burnett-Ryan will showcase colorful and bold mixed media paintings from her “Mother & Child” series in Ormond Memorial Art Museum’s pop-up window exhibit located at 9 W. Granada Blvd. now through Aug. 2.

Burnett-Ryan’s current art series portrays mothers with their children and is influenced by personal experiences and sympathy and concern over children separated from their parents.

“As a mother of three amazing children, I know how integral the ability to feel sympathy and concern for the sufferings of others is," Burnett-Ryan said. "After seeing children separated from their parents, I wanted to create a series of work focusing on compassion, starting with the mother and child imagery. The loving bond between mother and child is cemented before birth and endures long after death.”

The artist experienced separation from her own family when she was only 1 year old. She and her five siblings were left with relatives in Guyana, South America, when her parents left to establish a better life for the family in America.

She moved to Brooklyn, New York at age 9. While attending high school, she took art classes at the Brooklyn Museum, and later attended Rochester Institute of Technology and the School of Visual Arts in New York studying graphic design. In 1991, she married artist Weldon Ryan and started a family and graphic design business. In 2004, they moved to Palm Coast, Florida and opened Calypso Fine Art Gallery in 2016.

The five paintings on display, “Mother and Child I-IV” and “Comb,” are mixed media on canvas and board. These works create translucent color interactions, texture and dramatic contrast through the color play of tissue paper with acrylic paints and inks. The artist’s dream is to encourage joy and freedom, and her ultimate goal is to “push the boundaries and investigate the possibilities of what could be," she said. "Discovering new possibilities is my favorite part of creating art.”

Presently, Burnett-Ryan is a full-time artist and curates exhibitions for Bethune-Cookman University Performing Arts Center and Visual Gallery and the Yvonne Scarlett-Golden Cultural and Educational Gallery. Burnett-Ryan has shown her artwork in group exhibitions around Central and Northeast Florida as well as receiving several achievements and top awards from exhibits at the Daytona Beach Art League and Flagler County Art League.

To view artwork by Richlin Burnett-Ryan please visit her website at richlinryan.com. Find more information on the pop-up window exhibit and full artist biography at ormondartmuseum.org.