
PB & J (larger than life)
oil on linen on panel, 12"x16", 2024
$6400 framed
(Detail and framed views below)
To show a scale relationship, here's a snapshot of this larger painting on my easel, next to my recent 4x6" PBJ painting that was just sold at auction:
Here's what this painting would look like framed:
Here are a couple of detail views:

Wabi sabi is not easily described in words, but when I teach my workshops and
private painting mentoring online, I often share my thoughts on handmade objects, and the spirit and gesture embedded in them. If you're interested,
Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren is the seminal 1994 classic volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. This painting is part of my Paintings of Handmade Pottery work, here's
another wabi sabi bowl of mine from Patagonia, Arizona, and here's a
2013 post of mine about wabi sabi.
P.S. Just as a reminder: I'm planning to migrate this painting email newsletter to a different service—I'll be moving to one provided by
my new website host so that my website and newsletter are housed under the same roof. If you're a subscriber: here's what you need to know in order to keep getting my new painting emails: my newsletter emails will soon-ish be sent from "info@abbeyryan.com"—so if you don't want to miss out on any emails, please add "info@abbeyryan.com" to your address book / contacts list / safelist. Contact me if you have any questions!
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Click to view auction
Just as a reminder: I'm planning to migrate this painting email newsletter to a different service—I'll be moving to one provided by
my new website host so that my website and newsletter are housed under the same roof. If you're a subscriber: here's what you need to know in order to keep getting my new painting emails: my newsletter emails will soon-ish be sent from "info@abbeyryan.com"—so if you don't want to miss out on any emails, please add "info@abbeyryan.com" to your address book / contacts list / safelist. Contact me if you have any questions!
If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of
pears or
blackberries.
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Still Life with Greek Bottle, Hand-picked Grapes and Grape Leaf (the light / the shade), 2017
Oil on linen on panel, 8” x 10” unframed, $3500
Just as a reminder: I'm planning to migrate this painting email newsletter to a different service—I'll be moving to one provided by
my new website host so that my website and newsletter are housed under the same roof. If you're a subscriber: here's what you need to know in order to keep getting my new painting emails: my newsletter emails will soon-ish be sent from "info@abbeyryan.com"—so if you don't want to miss out on any emails, please add "info@abbeyryan.com" to your address book / contacts list / safelist. Contact me if you have any questions!
To see painting, life (baby!), and studio photos -- follow me
here.

Still Life of Pink Peonies in a Crystal Vase
oil on linen on panel, 2024, 12"x9"
Sold
If you're interested, see painting, life (baby!), and studio photos -- follow me here.
If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see Still Life with Pink Peonies in a Silver Cup (2020), or a bunch of my paintings of peonies or flowers.
To donate to support my work & studio practice,
click here. To donate or apply to my Mindful Studio Practice Scholarship,
click here. To get my painting in your inbox,
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Click to view auction
I'm back from maternity leave! The baby is doing amazing, and we are soaking up every single second. I won't be back to posting very often, but I did want to share peonies because peony season is so powerful and short and sweet. The last time I painted peonies was in 2022. If you're interested, see painting, life, and studio photos and follow me here. I also have some important news coming in one of my next couple of posts, so keep an eye out.
If you look closely, in the bowl you can see my self-portrait reflection. Here are a bunch of my paintings with self portrait reflections. If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see Still Life with Pink Peony Buds (2021), bougainvillea in a glass cup (the light / the shade) (2018), or a bunch of my paintings of peonies or flowers.
To donate to support my work & studio practice,
click here. To donate or apply to my Mindful Studio Practice Scholarship,
click here. To get my painting in your inbox,
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Still Life with Figs, Pecorino Romano Cheese, and Temmoku Bottle (the light, the shade)
oil on linen on panel, 2023, 11"x14"
Sold - Private collection
"Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words." ~
Robert Henri
This new larger still life was inspired by an 11x14" painting I did 10 years ago in December 2013,
Still Life with Figs, Bleu Cheese, and Temmoku Bottle (the light, the shade), which you can see
here. The 2023 composition is loosely a mirror of the one from 2013. If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of
cheese or
bottles or
figs, or other paintings in
my "the light / the shade" series inspired by the poetry of Robert Lax.
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The Improbable Question: Still Life with Stacked PB&J and Scarlet Tanager (diptych)
oil on linen on panel, two panels, 18 x 14 inches each
Private collection (commission)
This diptych is one of my recent large commissions. Below also is a closer view of each 18"x14" painting in the diptych, with some detail views.
I worked closely with the collector on the temporal elements and other personal details that they wished to include. On a related note, if you're interested in reading about still life and reflections on space and time, below is an interesting excerpt from the Introduction in Matilde Marcolli's Still life as a Model of Spacetime (2012) essay.
This diptych was also selected as a finalist for the 16th International Art Renewal Competition (ARC) Salon. ARC reviewed over 5,400 paintings from 75 countries.
Left panel:
Right panel:
If you're interested, below are some detail views:



"Still life is the most philosophical genre of traditional figurative painting. It saw some of its most famous manifestations in the Flemish tradition of the XVII century, but it evolved and survived as a meaningful presence through much of XX century art, adopted by avant-garde movements such as cubism and dadaism.
The purpose of this essay is to dig into the philosophical meaning behind the still life painting and show how this genre can be regarded as a sophisticated method to present in a pictorial and immediately accessible visual way, reflections upon the evolving notions of space and time, which played a fundamental role in the parallel cultural developments of Western European mathematical and scientific thought, from the XVII century, up to the present time.
A challenge for the artists of today becomes then how to continue this tradition. Is the theme of still life, as it matured and evolved throughout the dramatic developments of XX century art, still a valuable method to represent and reflect upon the notions of spacetime that our current scientific thinking is producing, from the extra dimensions of string theory to the spin foams and spin networks of loop quantum gravity, to non-commutative spaces, or information based emergent gravity? Some may feel that the notions of spacetime contemporary physics and mathematics are dealing with nowadays are too remote from the familiar everyday objects that form the basic jargon of still life paintings. However, much the same could be said about the notions of relativistic spacetime and the bizarre world of quantum mechanics that were trickling down to the collective imagination in the early XX century, and yet the artists of the avant-garde movements of the time were ready to jump onto concepts such as non-euclidean geometry, higher dimensions, and the like, and bring them into contact with a drastic revision of what it means to 'represent' the everyday objects that surround us, and that come to occupy a profoundly altered concept of space and time. So, I believe, the challenge is a valid one, even in the light of the ever more complex landscape of today's thinking about the concepts of space and time, and I take the occasion to make an open call here to the practicing artists, to take up the challenge and paint a new chapter of the 'still life' genre, suitable for the minds of the current century." Keep reading
here.
Marcolli shares on their webpage that they are "'a drifter of Dadaist persuasion' (computational linguist, sometime physicist and occasional mathematician)." To get my painting in your inbox,
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These cherries were given to me as a
gift -- follow that link to see some of my still life paintings that were inspired by the generosity of others.
"My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever."
~ Messenger by Mary Oliver
If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see
Strawberries in a Silver Compote (with Snow Reflections) (2018) or a bunch of my paintings of
cherries or this
silver compote.
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Click to view auction"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts." ~Thoreau
I am back to posting a few smaller auction paintings, and will also be sharing some of the larger works that I've been focusing on.
If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see
pear on a blue block from patmos, greece (the light / the shade) (2018), which is available for sale (just email me). You may also like
Two Pears on Blue Block from Patmos, Greece (Yin & Yang) (2018),
Fortune Cookie with Blue Block from Patmos, Greece (2017), or a bunch of my paintings of
peaches or
this blue block from Patmos, Greece. If you want to read some other quotes I've posted, those can be found
here.
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