Nicole Renee Ryan’s paintings explore the strange and beautiful way we remember places. A landscape from childhood, a familiar road, or somewhere we can almost picture—but not quite. Over time, memories shift, details disappear, and imagination fills in the gaps.

It is within this space between memory and imagination, reality and the unreal that Ryan creates her work.

A watercolorist, oil painter, and muralist from Mercer, Pennsylvania, Ryan uses landscape as a way to explore memory rather than simply depict a particular place. Her paintings combine recognizable forms with abstract shapes, expressive color, and softened details, creating environments that feel both familiar and dreamlike.

Ryan’s process is intuitive. As she paints, parts of the landscape begin to shift, move, and break apart. What starts as something recognizable can become something imagined, allowing the viewer to bring their own memories and experiences into the work.

Her interest in memory began while studying psychology at Washington & Jefferson College and continues to shape her artistic practice today. Influenced by artists such as J.M.W. Turner and Gerhard Richter, Ryan embraces the space between realism and abstraction, creating paintings that feel less like specific places and more like memories of places.

Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, including New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Pittsburgh. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships through the New York Students’ League at Vytacil, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Heinz Endowments, and her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Heinz History Center, and Butler Museum of American Art.