Rediscovering the world

David Ryan: Field Site Archive, paintings and sculpture, Catchment Gallery until March 6. Reviewed by Matt Bowler.

David Ryan's work on show at the Catchment Gallery is a stunning and luminescent collection – both thoroughly modern with an "apartment-friendly" aesthetic and metric, and yet timeless and ageless with a museum aura and artefact-heavy aroma.

A collection of paintings on paper, linen and canvas, executed with watercolour, acrylic and oils, the level of technique on display is undeniable. The paintings are complemented by a series of what can only be described as dioramas – miniature scenes and faux museum exhibits, a la model railways.

A series of three pieces entitled Field Site (archive) is presented in museum-style glass cases. Each case contains a ghostly watercolour figure with tantalising scraps of what appears to be diary texts, a model of a ship or vessel and some other artefact. The implied narrative is of lost explorers and scant surviving evidence. The effect is arresting.

The presumably tongue-in-cheek Abandoned CIA listening post Indian Himalayas 1974 is a central and focal figure.

Around the walls are the painted landscapes. But, again, they are landscapes as works in progress, as journeys taken, as frozen history.

All the works are augmented with notes and sketches, looking suitably aged and weather-beaten.

I guess the central notion is the artist taking the role of the natural scientists of old – the men who left Europe all those years ago and brought back artefacts, treasures and tales from new worlds. Who wrote and drew what they saw.

The implication is that now that our world has ostensibly been "explored" empirically, now it is the time for the artists to discover our world. To look at old mountains with new eyes. To rediscover, to document and present.

This is what Ryan does, from vast mountainsides to intricate studies of water running over rocks.

Aside from the obvious warmth generated by aesthetic excellence, the exhibition has a chilly, eerie, wind-lashed, ancient feeling. Very cool.

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