Virginia Ryan's 'I Will Shield You' at Montoro12 in Rome

Virginia Ryan (Victoria, Australia, 1956) presents fifteen shields in her solo exhibition 'I Will Shield You' at Montoro12 gallery in Rome, curated by Ursula Hawlitschka. The shields formally reference Native American dreamcatchers, embedding hidden objects that allude to contemporary fears and violence. The work evokes a New Dada entropy of images, striking viewers like lightning in a storm and revealing the paradoxes of the modern era. Ryan draws on the mythological personification of fear, Phobos, as the offspring of war (Ares) and love (Aphrodite). Citing Jung, she suggests that conscious attention to inner conflict allows opposites to gradually unite, transforming death and destruction into latent unity. The exhibition runs until June 25, 2016.