Gretchen Ryan (b. 1975, Boulder, Colorado) is a Los Angeles–based painter whose work centers on oil paintings exploring beauty, struggle, and the moral dimensions of human life. She has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2000. Painting has been her lifelong pursuit, and she is known for luminous, technically accomplished compositions that combine classical painting traditions with contemporary subjects and emotional intensity.

At the age of sixteen, Ryan survived a car accident in which a Jeep she was riding in drove off a Colorado mountain cliff, leaving her paralyzed and dependent on a wheelchair. The experience profoundly shaped her artistic perspective. Her paintings frequently depict figures suspended in moments of heightened psychological or physical tension, often exploring themes of freedom, vulnerability, and transcendence. Over the course of her career she has produced series examining seemingly opposing arenas of human expression, including girls’ competitive cheerleading and men’s professional boxing, both of which reveal extreme expressions of culturally coded femininity and masculinity. Angels and spiritual imagery also appear throughout her work, reflecting her interest in unseen dimensions of existence and the relationship between the physical and the eternal.

In 2026 Ryan completed Liberty Leading the Animals, a 13-foot by 7-foot oil painting that is both  monumental and arresting.  Initially inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, the work, developed over seven years, reimagines the historic composition as a call to compassion for animals and restructuring of our relationship with them, and marks the most ambitious project of her career. Ryan studied art at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, graduating summa cum laude. She later taught painting at ArtCenter College of Design. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions in New York and Singapore, and is held in numerous private collections.

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