Conceptual fine art by Dennis Ryan — welcome to kickthefaucet.com
The main navigation links above will guide you through fine art paintings and studies done on a couple mental disorders Dennis currently finds the most profound: phobias, anxiety and OCD. As silly as it may seem to some (even to the occasional professional that tries to treat it!) obsessive compulsive disorder is very real to the individuals that suffer from it.
- The "about Dennis Ryan" link talks a bit about this conceptual fine artist and his artistic medium of choice. It also discusses some ideas on art and gives a sort of artist statement. This section also tries to define what OCD is with the help of some materials written by professionals in the psychology field.
- The "phobia art" section, AKA: the early or initial works, is a collection of initial concepts and paintings about psychological phobias and the detriment they can cause on the lives of the sufferers. This phobia series is graphically, object oriented and highly, idea orientated. Most of the paintings stem from actual stories Dennis has heard and read about along the way. Don't worry, no names or specifics are identified in this art to protect the real story tellers from exposure in any sort of way or fashion.
- The "OCD art" series is another collection of ideas and paintings, but on this obsessive-compulsive anxiety disorder. In this series, the artwork grows and transitions to a more (ironically to OCD symptoms) relaxed and smooth line-work.
- The "anxiety art" series is a collection of some of the most recently created paintings. Anxiety is the most generalized term, or category, for many of these phobic and obsessive disorders, or sub-categories, of mental states of the mind.
- The "contact the artist" link is there solely for questions and comments about this fine art and to facilitate any interest in seeing it in person. By all means, the artist on this site is not a psychotherapist, psychologist or psychiatrist specializing in OCD, so please save all psychological disorder questions for a professional therapist.
The domain name "kickthefaucet.com" comes from a story that was told many years back. The story was from a young man suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. He was in therapy, while being discharged from the military for his mental disorder, when he confessed to his therapist that he would actually kick the faucet off with his foot (in public restrooms) after he 
washed his hands. He did this because he was very phobic about germs getting on his hands from the faucet's handle. His therapist bursted into laughter when she heard this confession. Evidently, the therapist did apologize later to the young man and explained it just struck her funny as she imagined him jumping up and karate kicking the faucet. The name "kick the faucet" has stuck ever since.
Around the same time as this story, an artist named Dennis Ryan was taking several psychology courses while getting an art degree, at a local state university, in Millersville, PA. He was also spending several hours a month of professional learning at a nearby veterans' mental health hospital. While in what he likes to call his psychology learning stage, Dennis learned a great deal about many different psychological disorders. He learned about general anxiety disorder (GAD), schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, depression and, of course, OCD. And with the knowledge gained from these studies and interactions, he feels apathetic for all those that suffer and struggle every day with these disorders constantly nagging at their brains. See, most of these conditions are serious chemical imbalances in the brain. These mental disorders are a disabling reality for millions of people. In fact these psychological disorders, or diseases, can be so severe that the sufferers need daily medication doses to control their symptoms just so they can function normally. Needless to say, the experiences with these individuals and their disorders have changed one artist's life and most importantly to this website... his artwork!
Dennis no longer volunteers at the clinic, as he found that some of the compulsive ideas seemed a bit contagious. Wondering... is it possible that a chemical imbalance disorder like OCD can be contagious? So to say, if a thought pattern can, in theory, actually induce the body and mind to increase or decrease its levels of serotonin, couldn't that become a slippery slope, sliding from a form of superstitious behavior into uncontrollable obsessive compulsive behavior?
Limited run giclée prints were made for Vh1's The OCD Project in California.
Click on an image for more information.
The painting on the wall behind Dr. Tolin, who is showing the brain scan with visual indications of OCD's chemical imbalances, is one of 5 paintings I did for my OCD Series and that appeared on Vh1's The OCD Project. The artwork is titled Ticker. Video courtesy of Vh1. Vh1 logo and The OCD Project content are property of © 2010 MTV Networks, © and ™ MTV Networks.
Dennis Ryan is a fine artist whose artwork on a conceptual level deals with phobias, ocd, anxiety and other psychological disorders. His art about excessive hand washing or obsessive compulsive disorder (i.e. cleaning, counting, canceling and checking: CCCC) and germaphobes will most likely be shown in Lancaster, Philadelphia, PA and Manhattan, SOHO, New York.
At this point in time Dennis paints, prints and draws about mental disorders and disabilities like severe anxiety, phobias and depression, and most likely will for the foreseeable future. He is also currently working on a series of paintings dealing with faith and religion, but his conceptual focus is now, and may always be, mainly on OCD... it seems he really likes working with his hands — pun intended!
More paintings and drawings are in the works and will be posted here as soon as they are finished. Most of the freshest thoughts and updates on the progress of any new paintings will be talked about on Dennis Ryan's fine artist blog and twitter.com/kickthefaucet. Exclusive announcements and snippets about upcoming showings, artwork updates and occasional sketches or pictures will be found on the new facebook.com/ocdproject.
Thanks for being curious.