Rebound - Paul Ryan
11 October - 28 October 2007

Combining sketches, diary notes and wall drawings, Paul Ryan's
exhibition illuminated the changing perception of HIV in London
over a period of 20 years: from 1986, when the first clear
information about HIV emerged, to 2006, when successful treatment
regimes had been established.
The title 'Rebound' referred to the experience of the declining
health and hopes of those affected by HIV, which hit a low point in
the mid-1990s before rebounding in recent times to improvements in
health and a greater optimism for the future.
This 20-year period was represented by a chronological display
of the artist's notes and sketchbooks showing pages and entries
about the experience of caring for, grieving for and sometimes
seeing the return to health of those close to him.
Larger images redrawn from selected pages from the sketchbooks
were also exhibited as well as a specially commissioned piece drawn
directly onto the glass wall of the gallery.
Paul Ryan was born in Leicester in 1968. He lives and works in
London. This was his first solo exhibition in central London since
'Drawing for Survival' at the Imperial War Museum in 2005-06.