If I Should Fall From Grace With God: Paul Ryan
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“You may think it’s a strange fit, these beautiful androgynous characters, alongside the unconventional beauty of MacGowan. But for me, they all work perfectly together.” - Paul Ryan
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if i should fall from grace with god
Exhibition opeNS 6 - 8pm
26 February, 2026
Paul Ryan brings together a suite of portraits that are, at first glance, unlikely companions: impeccably dressed colonial military figures and the unmistakable presence of Irish musician and poet, Shane MacGowan. For Ryan, however, the pairing is deliberate. “I have always been fascinated with the dandy character. There is something about fastidious grooming and an impeccable dress sense.” He is compelled by subjects that disrupt refinement.
By placing these figures in dialogue, Ryan opens a space where we are forced to consider the tension between surface and substance. In doing so, he shifts the gravity of his works towards a certain performance—of identity, masculinity, and history—while quietly probing the absurdity and latent violence embedded within Australia’s colonial legacy, a theme he repeatedly returns to.
MacGowan’s likeness appears within Ryan’s characteristic South Coast landscapes, rendered in thick impasto and charged colour. Here, figure and terrain seem to share the same unruly vitality. “The unkempt appearance of MacGowan mirrors my view of the landscape in which I live,” Ryan says. “Where the escarpment meets the sea, the bush is chaotic yet beautiful—much like MacGowan’s lifestyle, juxtaposed against his perfectly crafted poetry.”
In contrast, the portraits of colonial men, often described by Ryan as “androgynous”, are painted with a confident physicality. Their dense, tactile surfaces are animated by sweeping palette-knife gestures and luminous passages of paint. It is his energetic handling of ultramarine and earth tones which bind these disparate subjects into a shared space, trapped somewhere in the folds folds between performance and paint.
ANTHEA MENTZALIS
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