artist statement
My earliest memory of feeling joy and giddy excitement was being catapulted into a world of colourful saris, tinny music and high emotion, surrounded by my mainly female extended family, my hands sticky with ice-cream and sunshine. The open-air cinema was in town, heralded by loudspeaker announcements and colourful posters plastered haphazardly on every available surface. I’ve always loved the high drama and bright colours of Bollywood movies, and my childhood celebrations were filled with vibrant silks, heat, pungent smells and the high contrasts of bright gold jewellery offset by dirty streets.
These posters promising adventure and glamour had lives that were all too short, gnawed at by wind and rain, and bleached white by the blazing sun, but remnants would always remain, to be pasted over by the next blockbuster: another Deity, another breathless declaration of love. Over time, these posters built a kaleidoscope of colour, textures and shapes forming a wonderful interconnectedness of possibilities, an unfolding drama of life.
I love that intertwining of contrasts, revealing stories, colours, images and textures. My artwork is a process of layering different papers, threads, Letraset, gold leaf and paints. I layer them, and rub them off, distress them and smooth them down. And like the movie posters, I have my heroines and my Goddesses, not movie idols, but extraordinary women from ordinary backgrounds from around the globe, stars of their own epic story. They fill the space they occupy, and even though they are distorted and not whole they are are all beautiful and strong in their own way, something we can all relate to I think.
Ruth’S Bio
Ruth is a UK British-Trinidadian mixed media artist living in Switzerland for the past 16 years. Completing a year of Graphic Design at Gloucester college at age 18 she packed in a lot of life learning moments until the 90’s when she became a parent, a wife and discovered a life of health and balance as a Shiatsu practitioner. In 2017 Ruth decided to give up her Shiatsu practice and focus totally on art. Now, in 2021, she’s ready to show the world her art.
Inspired by her childhood memories of living on a Caribbean island; bought up by aunts and her grandmother, Ruth’s artworks are all about women. Their bold colours and delicious curves reflect strong, beautiful women confident in their bodies and owning the space they occupy. The distorted and incomplete figures and portraits represent the sense of not being enough. Each artwork is built up of layers of paint, a variety of papers and can include anything from feathers and threads to sand.
Ruth is ready to embark on sharing her artworks both on-line and in the physical world. If you’re passing through the beautiful city of Luzern and don’t mind being her dogs’ new best friend, she makes a great chocolate cake and loves the opportunity to share her passion for her work and art in general.
“You’ve got this!”