Whenever artist Lori Ryan gazes at Lookout Mountain, she sees something different, something special. The mystique of Lookout is what drove her to create her new exhibition, Look Out Above!, a collection of paintings that capture the various moods and emotions of the mountain. An opening reception for the artist will be Friday, July 1, from 5 pm to 8 pm at the gallery.
Whenever artist Lori Ryan gazes at Lookout Mountain, she sees something different,
something special. The mystique of Lookout is what drove her to create her new exhibition, Look Out Above !, a collection of paintings that capture the various moods and emotions of the mountain. An opening reception for the artist will be Friday, July 1, from 5 pm to 8 pm at the gallery.
To the St. Elmo artist, the mountain not only looms over her home like a guardian giant, it’s “a living, breathing thing and it has different moods. Depending on the time of day, the Chattanooga icon can be moody, frightening or friendly,” she says.
“In the morning when the sun’s coming up, it looks totally different than it does at noon or when the sun’s going down behind it,” Ryan states. “Or when a storm is coming over the mountain and it looks kind of fierce. Sometimes it’s halfway covered by fog, sometimes it’s completely invisible because of the fog, kind of like a magic trick where a guy says, ‘I’m going to make a building disappear,’ but in this case, he makes a mountain disappear.”
Trained as a painter with a college degree in studio art, Ryan‘s painting was sidetracked by life. Raising two sons, mostly as a single mom, she turned her artistic skills to graphic design for more than 20 years. But when her boys were grown, the canvas began calling to her again and she picked up her brushes and tubes of paint. She’s now been painting in earnest for about 10 years.
Before coming to Chattanooga about three years ago, Ryan was a member of ArtWorks, a co-op gallery in Anniston, Alabama. Once she arrived in the Scenic City, she quickly became a member of In-Town Gallery. Just being in Chattanooga has helped invigorate her artwork, she explains.
“I’ve never lived near a river or in the shadow of a mountain before, so I find the landscape very awe-inspiring. Since I paint things from nature, the natural beauty of the Scenic City has inspired me.” And nothing has struck her more than the looming profile of Lookout Mountain.
“I’m not sure there’s any other city where a mountain ridge ends right there,” she says. “It’s almost like a train has driven into town and stopped here. Anytime during the day, you can look up from almost any part of the city and see it. If you get lost, you can use the mountain to get back home — or at least I can.”