Veronica Ryan was born in 1956 in Plymouth on the Caribbean island of Montserrat and came to the UK as an infant. She now lives between London and New York. She explores personal, collective and historical memory through a range of sculptural materials and processes.
Veronica Ryan’s Sweet Dreams are Made of These (2022) Wakefield Permanent Art Collection (The Hepworth Wakefield) © Veronica Ryan, image courtesy of Alison Jacques and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, photo: Michael Brzezinksi
Her installations and individual sculptures combine a wealth of things and techniques, often all at once, from found objects to time-honoured sculptural materials like bronze and marble; and from carving to casting and crocheting. Colour plays a vital role in her work, in the varied hues of textiles or plaster. And she creates forms as diverse as seeds and fruits, mats and nets, pillows and blankets and architectural structures.
Veronica Ryan’s Disavowal (She Follows You Around) (2002) © Veronica Ryan, courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and Alison Jacques Gallery, London, photo: Steven Probert
Through arresting and often multilayered arrangements, she evokes the minutiae of everyday experience (often with a profoundly personal meaning), makes reference to resonant historical events and their legacies, and addresses major human themes and rites of passage.
Veronica Ryan’s Along a Spectrum (2021) on view at Spike Island, Bristol Courtesy Spike Island, Bristol, photo: Max MacClure
She reflects on the meanings embedded in her materials, her relationship with psychoanalysis and unconscious processes, and her distinctive approach to displaying her work. She discusses the early influence of her mother’s textiles, her visits to the British Museum and her epiphanic encounter with the work of Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois. She reflects on the importance of the poetry of Maya Angelou and chamber music and reggae, and she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1 April – 14 June 2026
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform. Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include several museums in which Veronica Ryan has had solo exhibitions, from the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where her exhibition Multiple Conversations opens in April 2026, to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, US, to The Hepworth Wakefield in the UK. Explore Bloomberg Connects and you will find that the guide to The Hepworth features extensive content relating to the gallery’s collection and exhibitions. For instance, you can hear about the Hepworth Plasters, a unique collection of Barbara Hepworth’s plaster and aluminium prototypes. These were made by the artist as a first stage in the process of casting works in bronze or other materials. In the exhibitions section, you can read about the gallery’s recent acquisition of Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red from 1943. And in the features on past exhibitions, you can watch Veronica Ryan discussing her commission for the gallery in 2021, Magnolia: Magnoliaceae.
