Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Heimbach
Ryan, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Raised in Laguna Beach California, I was exposed to art at an early age. During my teenage years my mother owned a gallery which gave me hands on experience with the art world. In 2008 a local artist Andrew Myers hired me. Shortly after that he became my mentor.
In 2010 I created my first series of sculptures titled “Hands of Time” and applied with them to the Festival of Arts in Laguna. I was the youngest artist in the summer of 2011 to be accepted at the age of 23. Since then I have been building up more skills which include drawing and painting to name a few.
In 2021 my art was featured on the 2nd season of the popular Apple Tv+ program “The Morning Show” starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. The artwork is on display in the bedroom of the main character “Alex Levy” played by Aniston.
I am very fortunate to have friends that are masters in many different forms of art and professions. Everything from oil painting, color theory, photography, mixed media, sculpture, video production, and woodworking to name a few. With all those talented friends and mentors I continue to be able to express my creativity in many different forms.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest struggles for me as an artist is just keeping the confidence to keep pushing myself and to keep the momentum of creating going. Also the struggle of getting the art out there for people to see. It’s interviews like this that I am very appreciative of. Who knows who could be reading this and whom they might pass this on to. I feel like half the battle is exposure. The ideas and creating the art is no where near the work that it takes to get it out into the world and seen by the right crowd that wants to purchase it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Lately I have been working on refining my painting skills and practicing on painting realistic colors since I mostly worked in black and white before. I first started working in sculpture then charcoal drawing when I was starting to learn art forms.
My sculptures typically have a narrative aspect to them, for instance my first sculpture I did was of a hang holding a small clack and the title was “Too little Time”.
The charcoal drawing that got me some recognition are the wrinkled drawings series. I will draw a rough sketch of a portrait in pencil then I wrinkle the drawing just within the portrait to create the texture. Once I get all the wrinkles in I do a charcoal drawing over the top with gives the finished drawing a sculptural effect to it.
The paintings I have done recently are a mixture of realistic and narrative. The painting I did titled “Don’t adjust your TV” is after the old saying where the broadcaster would let the viewer know what you’re seeing is really there and happening on the TV. The painting itself is of an old TV from the 70’s and it was during the time when most TV’s were switching over from black and white to color. Within the tv, which is also a separate panel is a painting of an eye that is black and white with just the iris having color. The overall idea is about seeing things that might not seem real and pay a little homage to when TV’s were transitioning from black and white to color.
Years ago I used to do live charcoal drawing during events and I am getting back into that scene. I have set up a separate Instagram page for that endeavor called @livecharcoal to see more details. This is something I just started up so it’s still in the begging stages.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Some people can’t notice this about me right away, but if they have met other people with the same thing they do. I have a cleft lip, palette, and nose. I am fortunate to have a very mild case of it and I also had many great doctors that help align everything very well. To me I really don’t talk much about it since I tend to forget that I have it. It’s apart of me like anything else on me and I don’t see it as anything that has held me back, in many ways it has tonight me many lessons. The only time I struggled with it was a few instances as a kids and being made fun of, but it was nothing extreme and I laugh about it now. Those kids were just being that way because they were naive of my situation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ryanartwork.com
- Instagram: @ryanartwork @livecharcoal
Image Credits
Ryan Heimbach
