Galleries

Mike Ryon | bio [+]

As a graduate of the exceptional Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida, Ryon came to painting through a circuitous route, spending three and a half years studying architecture and two years in the Army, one of them in Vietnam in the late sixties. Architecture was his first love, which is evident in many of his oil and watercolor paintings of American and old European structures and towns. With his cumulative training in classical painting and his additional studies in art history, Ryon works in most styles which aids him well in his professional art career. As a full-time professional artist, he appeals to a wide variety of collectors, from “A” to “Z”.

Ryon has a truly international perspective having lived in Paris, Milan, Dubai, New York, Los Angeles and Kuwait and his travels are even more varied. His wife, Bonn J. Lindstrom, and he were married in Venice, Italy.

He has achieved national and international recognition for excellence by: the American Watercolor Society, The Cambridge Art Association, the North Carolina Watercolor Society and the North American Competition by Winsor Newton winning second in the continent, among others. He has shown his work all over the world, including the Salmagundi Club on 5th Avenue and the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston where he was one of 9 artists out of 4600 entries to exhibit in watercolor. Ryon’s work has been acquired by three museums and hangs in a number of collections, both private and commercial, in the United States, England, France, Italy, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Jordan, Cairo, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Mexico.

“Drawing and painting since the age of 7 always existed for me before theory or explanation or any esoteric meaning. . .it is the reality that exists in my dreams and visions and creates stories that weave in and out of a myriad of colors, textures, mediums and tools.”