Cancer Survivor Shows Gratitude By Making Art Duets With Friends

Sometimes, an artist’s attitude toward his work changes as a result of new experiences. For Will Ryan, this shift occurred when he beat cancer.

In February of last year, the Napeague-based artist and musician underwent a risky stem cell transplant at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for a rare and life-threatening blood disease known as amyloidosis. It took him a year to recover and regain his strength, but the operation saved his life.

During his grueling recovery process, he received such tremendous support and compassion from his family and from his friends, who are mostly artists and musicians from the East End. He became so appreciative of this generosity and his second chance at life that he wanted to celebrate in some way. As an artist, he naturally thought to get his friends involved by creating art with them and displaying the finished products in an exhibition. So that’s what he is doing.

From September 22 through October 9 at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton, Mr. Ryan will showcase these joint projects in his exhibition titled “East End Duets.”

“I’m just feeling so glad to be alive and be able to do this,” he said. “When I was in that state where I could’ve let go or hung on, I’m so glad I hung on.”

Before Mr. Ryan was diagnosed, he explored various types of creative arts throughout his career including music, painting, photography, poetry and performance art. His fine and commercial abstract art had been shown in galleries around the world since 1982. His photography made it onto album and book covers, and he was part of a New York City-based avant-garde music group called King Chubby. Now that he has his strength back, he is finally able to revisit his lifelong passion with a new source of motivation and enthusiasm.

He has been working with more than 20 artists over the past few months to create sculptures, paintings and photographs that he calls “duets” for the show. In some collaborations, he and another artist created a piece together in the studio, like the watercolor paintings he did with Barbara DiLorenzo and Janet Jennings. In other instances, one artist started the piece and handed it over to Mr. Ryan to finish with his own ideas and style—or vice versa.

“I’m living my life now with such gratitude and joy. The one thing that I’m feeling that’s probably changed is that I’m only interested in doing work that is joyful,” Mr. Ryan expressed. “What I said to all the artists who I’m collaborating with is, ‘This show is about joy and gratitude and compassion. If you got some dark shit, you can do it somewhere else. This is not the place for that.’”

One exception to this duet format is a 10-artist piece he is working on with nine artists from the White Room Gallery. Mr. Ryan painted a Tibetan calligraphy symbol on nine separate square canvases, and each gallery artist will take one canvas to manipulate in whatever way they please.

His home that doubles as a studio is currently filled with pieces for the show. Two free-standing sculptures that he made with Abby Abrams hang from a window, a rotating painting that he made with Josie Fields is on an adjacent wall, a sculpture with Dennis Leri greets visitors at the entrance of his house and an unfinished painting lies in the middle of his studio, to describe a few.

“I’m a great admirer of Will Ryan’s work. I’m really happy that he invited me to be part of this show with him,” said East Hampton artist Ms. Abrams. She added that she was “very pleased” with the way Mr. Ryan finished the sculptures they worked on together.

Not only has Mr. Ryan dedicated most of his time and newfound energy to preparing artworks for his show, but he is also compiling duet songs and a collaborated poetry book in anticipation of a concert and spoken word event. During the exhibition opening, some duets he’s already recorded will play as a video on loop shows many of the artworks being made.

All of the works will be for sale, and the artists will donate a portion of the proceeds to the adult bone marrow transplant program at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

An opening reception for “East End Duets” will take place at the White Room Gallery, 2415 Main Street, Bridgehampton, on Saturday, September 24, from 5 to 7 p.m. The free, public show will run through Saturday, October 9.