Ronan Porter

About the artist 

Ronan Porter is a practicing artist who recently graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury and has exhibited his work in Warsaw, Poland; Canterbury, England; and Paphos, Cyprus

Ronan has lived in Papua New Guinea, Norway, the United States, Poland, Qatar, and Cyprus and first studied Physics at Imperial College in London before deciding that wasn't the right path for him. He realised his passion was in Fine Art after a gap year in Warsaw and in addition to this he founded and run a prize-winning political society and led a LGBTQ+ Liberation Group.

About his work

The work provokes thought, for the viewers to question their thoughts and ignite the discussion of ideas, to engage in conversation. This intention is layered throughout a piece: the combination of text and image; the bright and selective color palette; the enormous scale which dominates a space and confronts the viewer; the intriguing text, left open for interpretation but enticing enough to provoke a dialogue; the presentation on unstretched canvas and stapled gunned; overlapping paintings together; the graphic, comic book style that creates a deceptively flattened, print-like image when in fact there are brush marks and imperfections; the contrast between stenciled text and handwritten text. All these factors are used to incite discussion and trigger the viewer, so they aren’t just passively contemplating, but actively questioning.

The paintings reference photographs taken, images where the narrative can be manipulated or left open-ended. They capture an emotion, an interaction, an engagement within those portrayed or with something beyond the frame of the painting. The simplified style cuts to the essence of the image, highlighting certain features and drawing attention to those little moments – the crinkle of a nose caught in laughter or the comfort of a hand on a shoulder. They are monumental intimacies, private moments made public.

The work is contemporary in that it straddles borders: between print and painting, illustration and fine art, comic books and portraiture, installation and traditional painting.