RYAN HEWETT

RYAN HEWETT was born in 1979 in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa,

There is an interesting tension between Ryan's technique and subject matter: his paintings confront the viewer with raw, realist images of typically African subjects, mysteriously situated in decorative and non-figurative spaces. While the unadorned and simple personae express a fierce, confident and proud African beauty, depicted through the genre of portraiture, the overall compositions also allude to Ryan's preoccupation with the art-making process itself. He avoids narrative devices and gratuitous story-telling, and through portraiture, confronts us with questions (rather than answers) about the meaning of personal identity and the artist's own inescapable African-ness.