A major retrospective of Turner Prize-winning artist Veronica Ryan has opened, showcasing her career-long exploration of organic forms and repurposed materials. The exhibition features new works made from plastic bottles, bandages, and avocado trays, alongside earlier sculptures in bronze and lead that reference seed pods and fruit.
The review argues that while Ryan's symbolic use of materials like mango pods and tea to explore themes of global trade, migration, and healing is powerful in her more direct sculptures, her newer, more obscured works risk being visually indecipherable without explanatory text. This creates a tension between the artist's stated desire for open interpretation and the works' reliance on context to communicate their meaning.