ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a mixed media sculptor who stretches the scale of human anatomies to explore our inborn vulnerabilities within the ever-creeping lurk of surveillance capitalism. I blend digitally printed media, slick sculptural forms, and organic materials to breathe new agency into familiar objects and thrust together concepts of autonomy and control, intimacy and alienation. Seductive but steely mirrored eyeballs surveil the gallery, playing on notions of seeing and being seen, while oversized tongues hang mute like the flags of feckless states. Dancing disembodied ears eavesdrop in the gallery, and giant smiles grin down on viewers.
As hybrid absurdities, my work humorously inserts depersonalized bodies into celebratory situations and send-ups. Friendly and colorful grand gestures capture the viewer and push against boundaries of privacy, speaking to illusions of choice and monolithic sameness. Through pomp, circumstance, and attention-grabbing clatter, my work rides the line between artifice and sincerity, a sneaky and playful foil to consumerist distractions that reinforce systems of power.
ABOUT
Ruth's current and recent exhibitions include OCCUPIED+ABSENT at Strauss Gallery at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, I Forgot to Laugh... at Carlow University Art Gallery, and Hello Stranger at the University Galleries at Sacramento State. Recent artist residencies include the Wassaic Project (2022) and Art Farm (2021), and the Residency Project (2020).
Ruth has exhibited at Practice Gallery, Philadelphia; Corcoran College of Art + Design; the Delaware Contemporary; Coop Gallery, Nashville; Zeitgeist Gallery, Nashville; Root Division, San Francisco; and the University of the South, Sewanee, among others. Ruth’s artistic collaboration The Shaft, with Maiza Hixson, has performed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Soap Factory, Minneapolis; H.J. Miossi Gallery at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo; and the Koban Project, Baltimore. Ruth has been artist in residence at The Residency Project, Arteles Creative Center, ACRE Projects, Cannonball, Ox-bow, and the Recycled Artist in Residency in Philadelphia, and she has lectured and presented at Cranbrook Academy of Art, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Dartmouth College, Open Engagement, and SECAC. Ruth holds a BA in Studio Art with Honors from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Ruth lives and works in Chico, CA and is an Associate Professor of Art at the California State University, Chico. She teaches courses in a variety of sculptural media and techniques, including traditional, performative, and emerging practices. Ruth's pedagogy is rooted in process, experimentation, and interdisciplinary exchange, with a current focus on the intersection of digital and analog processes and the performative potential of the body.