Patinated Bronze
Size (approx.): 6 x 11 x 7.5cm
Variable edition of 21, initialled and accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate
About the work
On the occasion of her exhibition 'Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations' 1 April – 14 June 2026, Veronica Ryan has created a series of Magnolia blossoms, cast in bronze.
Ryan is known for her long-standing interest in the intricate structures and patterns of the natural world. She often references the fruits and flowers of the magnolia tree within her artistic practice; in 2022 she created 'Magnolia Blossoms', a large-scale public work at Goodwood Art Foundation. Included in the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition is 'Untitled (Magnolia Pod)’, 2024, a giant cast of a magnolia bulb. The Magnolia also holds personal narratives for the artist. She references Billie Holiday’s song Strange Fruit, in which Holiday sings of the “scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh”; a Magnolia pod gifted to her by a friend when she first moved to New York; and another found on the roof of Barbara Hepworth’s Garden studio.
For Ryan's Whitechapel Gallery edition, the magnolia blossoms are cast life-size. Despite being cast in bronze, the petals appear delicate, fragile and tender.
About the artist
Veronica Ryan (b.1956, Plymouth, Montserrat) currently lives and works both in New York and in the U.K.
Her work is conceptually and texturally rich as well as culturally and materially diverse. She employs a range of traditional materials such as plaster, bronze and marble in her work – drawing on skills and techniques gleaned in her academic training in the 1970s and ‘80s at London’s Slade School of Fine Art amongst other institutions – alongside crafts such as crochet and quilting – part of an intergenerational artistic legacy handed down from her mother. Her sculptures and installations examine environmental concerns, personal narratives and memories, as well as the wider psychological implications of history, trauma and recovery.
Selected Exhibitions
Over her forty-year career, Veronica Ryan has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and residencies within the UK, the US, and abroad. Veronica Ryan's first solo exhibition was on display at Arnolfini, Bristol in 1987. Other notable solo shows for Ryan’s work have been presented at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (1988), Camden Arts Centre, London (1995), Aldrich Museum, Connecticut (1996), Salena Gallery, Brooklyn (2005), Tate St Ives (2000, 2005 and 2017), The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2011), The Art House, Wakefield, (2017) and Spike Island, Bristol (2022). In 2022, Ryan was included in the Whitney Biennial and awarded the Turner Prize, one the most prestigious prizes for visual arts in the United Kingdom. The artist’s work is in many private and public collections such as the Tate Collection, the Brooklyn Museum, the Arts Council Collection, Contemporary Art Society, Sainsbury’s Collection, the Hepworth Wakefield, and the Weltkunst Collection at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Whitechapel Gallery editions are generously donated by the artists. All proceeds from the sale of these works directly support our exhibition and education programmes.
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£1,666.67
(Members £1,500.01)
