Brie Ruais

Brie Ruais is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York,[1] working in large “multi-faceted” ceramic sculptures,[2] performance,[1] photography,[citation needed] video,[3] and site-specific installation.[1]

Ruais’ work is a process-oriented, performative,[4] body-conscious strain of feminist sculpture[5] and addresses themes such as the environment,[1] eco-feminism,[6] feminist theory,[7] and embodiment.[8] Her work falls in the lineage of body-based conceptual artists Janine Antoni,[5] Bruce Nauman, Lynda Benglis, and Eleanor Antin;[9] artists whose work engages with the land such as Michelle Stuart,[4] Ana Mendieta,[4][2] and Richard Long;[4] as well as the gestural athleticism of action painting[9] and Richard Serra’s lead performances.[3] Her work has also been compared to artists whose work is influenced by their natural surroundings like Georgia O’Keefe and Agnes Martin.[2]

Early life

Ruais was born in 1982 in Southern California.[6] She received her BS in Studio Art from New York University Steinhardt School in 2004.[10] She received her MFA from the School of the Arts at Columbia University in 2011, where she studied with Jon Kessler.[10][11]

Work

Ruais’s abstract ceramic sculptures[1] retain both the primordial, earthen origins of clay[12] as well as the physical and psychological imprint of their maker.[8] Working on the floor,[6] Ruais begins her work with a predetermined set of actions[7] and an amount of clay that often equals her own bodyweight.[13] The titles of her work reference the gestures she performs, like “spreading out from center,” “compressing,” “pushing landscape,”  and “making space from the inside.”[14] Her process is highly physical and it is performed quickly from beginning to end, utilizing her entire body.[6] She is described as kicking, spreading, scraping, and skimming,[6] cinching, ramming, and shoving the material across the floor or up a wall.[12] The resulting form is then cut into segments, glazed, fired, and hung on the wall.[5] The finished sculpture is embedded with the marks of this process: “whorled and rutted from fingers, elbows and boot treads”.[5]  The sculptures are topographical[12] documents of the performance that formed them.[5]  Ruais’ work explores both the limits of the body[5] and the material.[15]

Ruais is known for her circular wall works[15] that measure on average 80 inches (2 meters) in diameter.[16] The sculptures are made on the floor and then hung vertically on the wall.[17] They resemble clocks, starbursts,[3] ray-like forms, punctures, and wounds.[8] In Scraped Away from Center, 130lbs (Night) (2018), for example, the pigmented stoneware extends outward from the center, where Ruais knelt to make it, into a circular form with jagged edges.[16]

Books

Brie Ruais’ work is included in Phaidon’s Vitamin C: Clay + Ceramic, a global survey of 100 of today's most important clay and ceramic artists, chosen by leading art world professionals, published in 2017.[6][18]

Exhibitions

  • 2021 Movement on the Edge of the Land, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston, TX[1][2][19]
  • 2021 Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA[14][20]
  • 2021 This is America, Kunstraum Potsdam, Berlin, Germany[21][22]
  • 2021 This Earth: Notes and Observations From Montello Foundation Artists, The Southern Utah Museum of Art, Cedar City, UT[14][23]
  • 2020 Formed and Fired: Contemporary American Ceramics, The Anderson Collection, Stanford University, Stanford, CA[14][24]
  • 2020 The Body, The Object, The Other, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA[14][25]
  • 2020 Afterimages, Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, Québec, Canada[26][27][28]
  • 2019 Earth Piece, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY[14][29]
  • 2019 America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas[14][30][31]
  • 2019 Intimate Immensity, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA[14][32]
  • 2019 The Form Will Find its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction, The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN[33]
  • 2017 New Ruins, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC[34][35]
  • 2015 Crafted: Objects in Flux, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA[14][36]
  • 2015 The Familiar and the Indefinable in Clay: The Scripps 71st Ceramic Annual, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont, CA[37]
  • 2014 EAF14 Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY[38][39]
  • 2013 Vessels, The Horticulture Society of New York, New York, NY[40][41]
  • 2011 BYTS Bosch Young Talent Show, Stedelijk Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands[42]

Awards

  • 2021 Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant, First Place[43][44]
  • 2018 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant[43][45]
  • 2017 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, NY, NY[43][46]
  • 2017 Montello Foundation Residency, Montello, Nevada[47][48][49]
  • 2016 Dieu Donne, Workspace Program Residency, NY, NY[50]

Collections

Ruais' work is in the public collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX,[51][52] Matamoros Art In Embassies Collection, Mexico,[43][53] Burger Collection, Hong Kong,[2][16][54] Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH,[55] and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.[20]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Shilcutt, Katharine. "Mutual recognition: Brie Ruais moves heaven and earth at the Moody". Rice News | News and Media Relations | Rice University. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  2. ^ a b c d e Josenhans, Frauke V. (May–June 2020). "Terrestrial Affair". ArtAsiaPacific. No. 118. p. 63.
  3. ^ a b c Rosenberg, Karen (2013-06-20). "'Vessels'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  4. ^ a b c d Ollman, Leah (2021-02-23). "The Measure of All Things". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Mizota, Sharon (2018-05-19). "Brie Ruais puts all of her body weight into each sculpture she makes". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2018-05-20. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Elderton, Louisa (2017). Vitamin C: Clay + Ceramic in Contemporary Art. New York: Phaidon. pp. 250–253. ISBN 978-0-7148-7460-9.
  7. ^ a b Marsh, Jenine (Summer 2018). "Brie Ruais: Attempting to Hold the Landscape 2016-2017". cmagazine. p. 48.
  8. ^ a b c Larkin, Daniel (2022-01-19). "Using Clay to Concretize the Psychological State of Being Wounded". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  9. ^ a b Ollman, Leah (2014-08-01). "Getting physical with clay and fiber at Marc Selwyn". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  10. ^ a b MacAdam, Barbara A. (February 3, 2022). "Brie Ruais: Inside her Process & Partnership with Clay". Art & Object. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  11. ^ Indrisek, Scott (September 9, 2014). "Brie Ruais Gets Physical with her Material". Blouin Artinfo.
  12. ^ a b c Trainor, James (Oct 1, 2014). "Brie Ruais". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  13. ^ Wilson, Michael (April 24, 2012). ""Movement in Three Parts"". TimeOut New York.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ruais, Brie (2022-02-01). "The Proof in the Print". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  15. ^ a b Wei, Lilly (2014-01-15). "Claytime! Ceramics Finds Its Place in the Art-World Mainstream". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  16. ^ a b c Throckmorton, Jodi (May–June 2020). "Terrestrial Affair". ArtAsiaPacific. No. 118. pp. 61–62.
  17. ^ Farago, Jason; Schwendener, Martha (2017-03-02). "What to See at New York's Art Fairs This Week". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  18. ^ Phaidon. "Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art". Phaidon. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  19. ^ Cascone, Sarah (2021-07-27). "How Brie Ruais Uses Her Own Body to Shape Her Clay Sculptures, and the Desert Sounds That Keep Her Motivated". Artnet News. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  20. ^ a b Voeller, Megan (June 1, 2021). "For 'Taking Space' at PAFA, women artists are as monumental as they want to be". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  21. ^ Richter, Von Mathais (August 8, 2021). "Bilder einer Geisterfahrt". Markische Allgemeine.
  22. ^ "THIS IS AMERICA - Exhibitions - Albertz Benda". www.albertzbenda.com. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  23. ^ Southern Utah Museum of Art (November 14, 2021). "Earth-based exhibit at SUMA features Montello resident artists from around the country". KSL News. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  24. ^ Katz, Leslie (2021-03-26). "Stanford art museums to reopen in April". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  25. ^ Ollman, Leah (2020-03-14). "Review: Coronavirus closed Craft Contemporary's biennial, but it can't stop our love of the art". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  26. ^ "Afterimages". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  27. ^ "Une saison féministe au Musée d'art de Joliette". www.laction.com (in French). Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  28. ^ Quirrion, Jean-Michel (July 31, 2020). "Maude Bernier Chabot, Brie Ruais et Elizabeth Zvonar, Images remanentes". espace.
  29. ^ "albertz benda opens "Brie Ruais: Some Things I Know About Being In A Body"". artdaily.com. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  30. ^ "Dallas Museum of Art Presents America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape | Dallas Museum of Art". dma.org. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  31. ^ "'America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape' at Dallas Museum of Art". ArtfixDaily. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  32. ^ Newhall, Edith (March 24, 2019). "Intimacy writ large". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. H5.
  33. ^ The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction. NCECA. 2019.
  34. ^ "Rosy Keyser & Brie Ruais". Wall Street International. 2017-02-13. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  35. ^ "DC's American University Museum Shows Coco Chanel, and Abstraction in Painting, Sculpture, Photos, and Mixed Media". ArtfixDaily. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  36. ^ Zilber, Emily (2015). Crafted: Objects in Flux. Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
  37. ^ Howard, Will (2015-02-06). "Ceramics Show Dazzles". The Student Life. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  38. ^ Rogers, Pat (March 3, 2015). "Art Events Not To Miss During Armory Art Week". Hamptons Art Hub.
  39. ^ "EAF14". Socrates Sculpture Park. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  40. ^ Rossetti, Chloé (28 June 2013). ""Vessels"". Artforum. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  41. ^ Rosenberg, Karen (2013-06-20). "'Vessels'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  42. ^ "Stedelijk Museum 's-Hertogenbosch". www-sm--s-nl.translate.goog. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  43. ^ a b c d "BRIE RUAIS - Artist - Albertz Benda". www.albertzbenda.com. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  44. ^ "Brie Ruais | 1st Place | 2021 | Virginia A. Groot Foundation". www.virginiaagrootfoundation.org. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  45. ^ "Brie Ruais | Works | Pollock Krasner Image Collection". www.pkf-imagecollection.org. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  46. ^ "Brie Ruais". Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  47. ^ "Brie Ruais" (PDF). 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  48. ^ "Brie Ruais" (PDF). Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  49. ^ "Montello Foundation". www.montellofoundation.org. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  50. ^ "Brie Ruais". Dieu Donné. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  51. ^ Armstrong, Annie (2019-04-11). "Dallas Art Museum Adds Eight Works to Collection with Dallas Art Fair Acquisition Fund". ARTnews. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  52. ^ Israel, Nancy Cohen (April 2019). "Zoë Buckman at Albertz Benda". Patron Magazine. pp. 89–91.
  53. ^ "MATAMOROS Consulate 2019 – U.S. Department of State". Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  54. ^ Tuttle, Martha (May–June 2020). "Inside Burger Collection: Terrestrial Affair, Brie Ruais". ArtAsiaPacific. No. 118. pp. 64–65.
  55. ^ Mahanes, Melissa (March–April 2021). "A Luxury Hotel and Fine Dining are only part of the story of The Joseph". Sophisticated Living Magazine.