Edel Ryder-Hanrahan: Cork artist draws on Korean pop culture
Edel Ryder-Hanrahan's new exhibition of work focuses on Korean boyband BTS
Edel Ryder-Hanrahan admits it can be difficult to find time to make art. As well as drawing and painting, the Cork-based artist (who prefers they/them personal pronouns) teaches maths and computer science at Christ King secondary school, and shares three young children with their husband, the science fiction author Gareth Hanrahan.
Ryder-Hanrahan's first solo exhibition, Me, Myself and BTS, has just opened at the Hideout Café and Art Gallery on Wellington Road, and is the fruit of two years’ labour.
Ryder-Hanrahan has always had an interest in art, but only started drawing and painting seriously during the COVID pandemic.
“I’d taken parental leave from work,” they say. “Our youngest is nearly six now, but she was less than a year old at the time. Gareth got me some ink, and I was painting trees and stuff like that. But then a friend sent me this playlist, and a song came on, 'Daechwita' by Agust D. I just stopped. I was like, what is this? I didn't understand the words, but the music and the emotion just struck me immediately.”
Ryder-Hanrahan learned that Agust D — whose real name is Min Yoongi — performs as Suga with six others in the South Korean boy band BTS.
After exploring the group's music further, Ryder-Hanrahan began drawing their portraits. "The ones I did in the beginning were terrible. Or amateurish, anyway. But I drew every day, and my skills developed. And it gave me a feeling of peace, to listen to the music and draw the members of the band.
“BTS have a lot of messages in their songs about struggles with day to day existence, mental health issues, and struggling with the ability to love and care for yourself. And I thought, well, I'm able to make something beautiful of these people. When I look in the mirror, I don't like myself very much, but I wondered if I could try to do the same thing, to draw myself and approach it in the same way that I approach drawing them?”
Ryder-Hanrahan came to art circuitously. Initially, they studied maths and computer science at UCG, before moving to Japan in 2002.
“I went out there to work for a mobile app development start-up in Tokyo,” they say. “That went kaput after about six months, but I stayed on, setting up a new IT company with two other people I’d worked with. We mainly served other ex-pats in the software industry.
“I did that for six years. I loved the work, but what got to me was the distance from family. My dad had a stroke while I was out there. He's fine now, he recovered, but that's not something you can just respond to very quickly when you live so far away. It's a solid 24 hours of travel door to door to come home. In the end, Gareth came out to visit me, and instead of coming back to Ireland for a holiday, I just packed up and moved to Cork.”
Ryder-Hanrahan was looking to change career at that point. “I sold my share in the company in Tokyo, and took a year out to do some courses. I did life drawing courses at the Crawford College of Art and Design, and graphic design at CIT. And then, eventually, I decided to retrain as a teacher. Some people don't see the connection between art and maths, but I really like both.”
Ryder-Hanrahan is on the autism spectrum, but believes it does not impact on their work in education. “At least I don't think it does,” they say, “but I don't know any other way than just being myself. We have students, obviously, who are also on the autism spectrum. There’s a huge variety of students, really. And I think that having a variety of teachers, with all their different identities, who've been through decades of life, living as different people in the world, it just means that the students have role models who can show them how to function in the world as well.”
Ryder-Hanrahan has identified as non-binary since before the pandemic. “I came across the concept around 2018, and it was like a jigsaw piece fitting into place. Being addressed as she/her, or when people go ‘ladies’ and ‘girls’ and stuff like that, has always made me wince internally, but I didn't ever know why. It wasn't like I wanted to be called he/him, or a boy. But something in the middle, where gender isn't emphasised, is comfortable for me.”
Two years ago, on their 45th birthday, Ryder-Hanrahan began work on the series of drawings and paintings they are showing at the Hideout. “I did 30 portraits of the members of BTS, and 30 of myself,” they say. “I’d get up at half five in the morning, before the children woke up. I still do that now, I get up two hours before everybody else so I have that time to myself to make art.”
Ryder-Hanrahan is not sure if working on the portraits has influenced their thinking. “But I do feel more accepting of myself,” they say. “I might not look like some absolutely perfectly styled Korean pop idol, but there's something as human in me as there is in them. And that's the thing that's worth looking at.”
Ryder-Hanrahan thinks it unlikely that they will become a full-time artist any time soon. “I don't know if that would be possible. I like the structure of teaching, and I like that connection with the young people growing up and learning.”
They are, however, job sharing this year. All three of their children are autistic, and have additional needs. The youngest has just started in special autism class. "They're really good with her. But we might get a call that she has to come home, so I’m working fewer hours while she settles into school.
“Gareth, being a writer, works from home, so there's flexibility. But it wasn't fair on him; he was doing all of the appointments because they would always fall during school hours. So now I can do some of them, like the occupational therapy, speech and language, and bringing her to school occasionally. It's just taking some of the pressure off, so we can both manage life.”
- Edel Ryder-Hanrahan’s Me, Myself and BTS exhibition runs at the Hideout on Wellington Road until February 28. Further information: instagram.com/daydayupwards
