SERIES: SUM OF DESTRUCTIONS

Bryan Ryley's "Sum of Destructions" series, including this significant work, began in 2004. Inspired by a preparatory sketch for Picasso's Guernica, Ryley scanned and enlarged its bold outlines of a hand gripping a broken sword. This motif became the foundation for twelve works on paper and the underlying drawing for his large painting. As Liz Wylie, Curator at the Kelowna Art Gallery, notes, "The notion of coming to grips with Picasso is something that has faced other artists as well, and it forms an homage of sorts this suite of works by Bryan Ryley, as well as a fruitful jumping off point for his own meditations on war in the twenty-first century." This series was exhibited at the Kelowna Art Gallery from November 7, 2009, to January 10, 2010.