Ryan Henly
Ryan Henly has studied video production for 5 years, obtaining an A-level in film and video and a Ba (Hons) in Video Art Production at UCCA. This has given him a great incite into the history of film and video and at only 21 years old allowing plenty of time to focus on production and creating, finding a unique style. He is Interested in sociological issues symbolic in art history and his work currently draws on sexuality, control of an image and identity. Looking at subjectivity, cliché’s within gay culture to create self-portraits that relay meaning about identity and image in current culture.In his most recent piece, Ryan took to the streets of Soho in a performance piece that focused on an identity crisis with the commerce of the Pink Pound. He dressed up in a Muscle Man suit and walked the streets and shops symbolic with gay culture and the gay scene. The work drew on insecurities he felt around gay culture and the advertising of sexual images of the body beautiful, the Muscle Man. The reactions from gay men in the well-known gay store Clone Zone seemed to demonstrate the pieces’ intensions. The mood caries the piece, taking seriously issues of representation, clichés and identity to speak of dissolution with the consumer affects of the manufactured side of gay culture.