Ryan Holland

2020 Senior Exhibition Artists

Ryan Holland

Art + Design: Photography

Biography

Ryan Holland graduated in 2020 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with a BFA inPhotography. He has lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts providing his services to local art organizations and businesses, but upon graduation will be looking for opportunities beyond his hometown.

Single image from 125 minutes, archival pigment print, 6.4" x 4.4"

Statement

The idea that time is a continuous and unwavering progression can seem daunting. While life keeps going, a break may be needed. Taking these can be a necessary risk, but what will you miss in that particular time?

Using time-lapse photography I capture sequences illustrating how there will always be information we do not have due to the nature of photography and how environments have a rich history outside of our own perspective. To show thematic contrasts, a portion of the sequences are more intimate, inside someone’s home as they travel in and out of their space. While the viewer is invited to stay in a space, there are still barriers withholding information. Others are not so intimate, pulling the camera back and out of interiors to show a wider perspective dwarfing that initial, smaller, viewpoint. The large prints with small individual images invite the viewer to lean in and look closely. Some sequences are more sporadic, with things constantly changing with each photo. Others have more subtle and slower changes. By having the photos taken on a timer by the camera itself, the viewer is locked into a particular perspective and has to accept it.

The reality of events has been broken down so much that even with the bounty of images there will always be context missing.

This project came about after realizing that my fear of missing out was unsustainable. I use this realization as a catalyst to explore the unseen, since I would often feel like I was missing out on events, and accepting that I am not going to be present for everything was the motivation for making this project. In my work What Was Missed I am creating scenarios that carry on without me being witness to them in an attempt to examine this idea.

When considering the use of space in this series, the work of photographers like Uta Barth pushed me to think of the relative permanence of how light travels through these over the course of time. This idea can also be applied to people as well, as we travel through spaces much like light does. The series is very much influenced by long exposure photography of Micheal Wesley, who did a study of a room over the course of a year, capturing only the faded remnants of people and things moving throughout the space, as well as the entire construction of a building.