Ryan Van Der Hout Artist Talk

Multidisciplinary artist Ryan Van Der Hout reimagines traditional still life vanitas in his photographic and installation-based solo exhibition Collecting Dust, which considers the human fascination with mortality. His series of black-and-white photographs explores the personal and universal transformations and rebirth that emerged amid the current pandemic, along with their accompanying anxiety and grief.

Ryan Van Der Hout

Toronto-based artist Ryan Van Der Hout’s work has been widely featured in publications including The Huffington Post, Vogue Italia, CBC, and Reader’s Digest. He has exhibited across Canada, the United Kingdom, and New York, and most notably in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Collectors Series; as part of a Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival Featured Exhibition; and in The Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward festival. Van Der Hout has created public art for the Toronto Archives, The TTC, Nuit Blanche, and Pemberton Developments; was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery; and has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Ryerson University.