Featured artist, Ruth Koelewyn, currently has her pieces Blue Shape and Blue Triangles on view in our 117 Gallery as part of Matter, Matter, Object, Wall. See the exhibition from now until June 9.
Ruth researches the significance things have in our everyday lives and how we use objects to learn about the world, be part of society, and bond with others. Her practice includes curatorial projects, collaborative projects, and her individual art career. Her work has been supported by the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, the Society of North American Goldsmiths, the Mondriaan Foundation, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Ruth is currently a resident at the Rotacyjny Dom Kultury Jazdów in Warsaw, Poland where she will also present her work in a solo exhibition.
“My work is currently focused on depicting the shape and character of the sky in a given place. In Detroit, looking out at Lafayette Park, it creates blue crowns around large buildings with open parks surrounding them. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, where I lived prior to my return to Michigan, it was a small triangle of blue seen between tightly packed houses when you looked up past the mountains. I am recording these characteristics because the sky, while helping to define a unique sense of space and place, is also something huge, outside ourselves, universal and ubiquitous. By putting the shape
of the sky into drawings, collages and sculptures, I am making the sky a thing to hold, to understand, to identify as our own: a part of ourselves. When we live in a place for a long period, or perhaps are just confined briefly with a limited view, the scenes through our windows or on familiar walks around a neighborhood become a part of our sense of self, our security and comfort. By focusing attention on these sentiments my work serves to make viewers aware of their kinship with the world around them. By pulling the shapes of the sky formed by our structures into graspable forms, I offer a representation of the sky to inspire people to connect to the spaces they occupy and the people around them. It is a visual gesture to help people feel part of something larger than themselves.”
See more of Ruth’s work on her website.
