George And The Dragon

Motivated by a sense of the carnivalesque, Ryan Moseley’s canvases offer up a surreal world of invented characters and rituals that seem at once arcane and futuristic. During his studies at art school he worked as a security guard at The National Gallery; his days spent surrounded by the works of old masters became a key inspiration for his practice. ‘I like the fact that passages in art history can sometimes fool you’, he explains. ‘Characters become almost timeless, like looking at painting from the 13th century which could have been painted yesterday. George and The Dragon is based on a Bermejo painting. I guess the artist didn’t know what he was dealing with first hand, in the way of visualising part of the subject? So he alludes to an idea of what might look like a rendition of evil, a dragon, demon, Lucifer. Our idea of a modern dragon might be like that on the Welsh flag, but it could be something else. My George And The Dragon could be more akin to a pub sign of the same name. I like these different historical readings, and use my own narratives in paintings.’