Gretchen Ryan. Artist. LA.

Oil on linen.


Charcoal on paper.

"The portraits of children began with me wanting to paint myself when I was a child. At the time I was newly disabled—using a wheelchair after a car accident as a teenager—and pretty much assimilated to the situation by getting drunk. I thought a lot about the time when I was perfect, the way we are when we’re new (...) The strange vision of babies in makeup and thousand-dollar dresses is so unnatural but what appeals to me is finding a real moment, the child in the doll. Pageants are a condensed, intensified version of what all girls and women go through; being judged and valued for our beauty or lack thereof."
gretchenryan.com