Tara Ruth Work | Artist Statement & CV | Return to Artist List
You must be logged in to advance Nominee.
You must be a selection to view advance submissions.
Artist Statement
Artist Statement
The majority of my work comes from an interest in how we see in relationship to the environments we are forced to inhabit or move in and out of. My curatorial projects, in addition to my studies in anthropology, literature and philosophy, have influenced my work. In that regard I am seeking to investigate temporal delay not in theoretical terms as much as through the relationship of aesthetics to lived experience.
My most recent body of work is called For No Good Reason. The work came from my interest in the nature of displacement. In this case, I am attempting to engage a kind of architectural stasis in which various elements move beyond their "rightful" place. In the work I am using a compositional juxtaposition that creates a temporal delay by setting up spaces that hold and release, through the relocation of horizons and through the use of light and shadow. The word uncanny may come to mind, owing to source material that originated in the architecture of institutions, in the aftermath of weather disturbances in places such as New Orleans and Indonesia, and from human disturbances such the Iraq war.
If the question, "what is the purpose of this work?" arises, the title is meant to convey the moral limitations that reason can put on trying to comprehend things trapped by the limits of our understanding. In an attempt to further the work, I am trying to manipulate the paint in a way that contradicts the subject matter and points to a more sensorial experience for the viewer.
Artist Statement
The majority of my work comes from an interest in how we see in relationship to the environments we are forced to inhabit or move in and out of. My curatorial projects, in addition to my studies in anthropology, literature and philosophy, have influenced my work. In that regard I am seeking to investigate temporal delay not in theoretical terms as much as through the relationship of aesthetics to lived experience.
My most recent body of work is called For No Good Reason. The work came from my interest in the nature of displacement. In this case, I am attempting to engage a kind of architectural stasis in which various elements move beyond their "rightful" place. In the work I am using a compositional juxtaposition that creates a temporal delay by setting up spaces that hold and release, through the relocation of horizons and through the use of light and shadow. The word uncanny may come to mind, owing to source material that originated in the architecture of institutions, in the aftermath of weather disturbances in places such as New Orleans and Indonesia, and from human disturbances such the Iraq war.
If the question, "what is the purpose of this work?" arises, the title is meant to convey the moral limitations that reason can put on trying to comprehend things trapped by the limits of our understanding. In an attempt to further the work, I am trying to manipulate the paint in a way that contradicts the subject matter and points to a more sensorial experience for the viewer.
CV
Group Exhibitions
2008
Annual Benefit
Dieu Donne, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
Momenta Gallery Benefit
Momenta Gallery/White Columns
Group exhibition and benefit
2007
Per Square Foot
Dieu Donné, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
2005
Shangra La
Dieu Donné, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
2003
Water Marks /Inside-Outside
Mount Desert Symposium on the Arts/LandEscapes
Site-specific installation on the water, Mount Desert, Maine
2002
Generations III
AIR Gallery, New York, NY
An invitational exhibition of emerging and mid-career women artists
2001
Reactions
Exit Art, New York, NY
Responses to the September 11th tragedy.
Milton Avery Graduate School of Fine Arts
Red Hook, NY
MFA Thesis exhibition
1998
Generations II, A Survey of Woman Artists at the Millennium
AIR Gallery, New York, NY
invitational exhibition of emerging and mid-career women artists
1995
First Street Gallery, New York, NY
Finalist, National Competition
Selected Curatorial Projects
2008
Opportunity as Community, Parts One & Two, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Former resident artists invite fellow artists to create new work on Dieu Donné paper
Same Sweet Dream, curated in conjunction with Martina Batan, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
First exhibition featuring new works on Dieu Donné paper by self taught artists.
2007
Emerging Workspace Exhibition, curated by Patricia C. Phillips, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Emerging residency artists from over the last six years present new work. Accompanied by panel discussion on artists workspaces.
Polly Apfelbaum, Basic Divisions, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Lab grant residency exhibition featuring new works in paper by the artist. Online video interview with Polly Apfelbaum.
2004
Food, Clothing and Shelter, Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Surveys work by a group of women artists using the categories of food, clothing and shelter within the context of culture or religion to express concepts of domesticity, rebellion, reverence and difference. The show includes installation, photography, painting and video by artists Petah Coyne, Carrie Mae Weems, Phyllis Galembo, Suzanne Bocanegra, Orit Raff, Marion Wilson, Siona Benjamin, Debra Priestly, Suzanne Silver, Elizabeth Riley and Valerie Hird.
2003
Immersion - Curated by Tara Ruth and Patricia Phillips
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
This exhibition explores water and ritual cleansing. The works range from artistic responses to water as the earth’s “circulatory system,” purification of the body, and the containers that facilitate those processes. Included in the exhibition are works by Allan Wexler, Lesley Dill, Carrie Moyer, Kiki Smith, Arlene Shechet, Hope Sandrow, Thomas Lanigan Schmidt, Frances Whitehead, Heide Fasnacht, Suzanne Joelson, Karen Shaw, Mary Beth Reed, Shari Rothfarb, and Martyn Ware.
Sacred Waters
Site Specific Exhibition
Riverside Park at 68th Street
The Interfaith Center of New York in collaboration with The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance & Riverside Park
Site-specific exhibition created by local artists to explore the connection between religion and the environment. Artists Lesley Dill, Nancy Bowen, Kelly Kaczynski, and the team Martyn Ware and Vince Clarke of the Illustrious Co., Ltd., Rotunda Gallery’s KidsArt and Parsons University Graduate Students, with artist Nathalie T.A. Pham. Multi-denominational ritual blessing of water by Hindu, Shinto and Yoruba religious leaders.
A Time to Rebuild: Daniel Libeskind in Exhibition
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Gallery Conversation with Nina Libeskind June 16, 2003
This exhibition looks at the finalist selected to rebuild Lower Manhattan and the spiritual and civic needs it addresses through an exhibition of prints and the architectural model submitted for the site.
Lesley Dill; Tongues on Fire; Visions and Ecstasy
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition and Panel Discussion
A multitiered project Dill created as an artist-in-residence while at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in North Carolina.
“The Word that Means” - Panel Discussion with Lesley Dill, Professor of Art History Erika Doss, Reverend John Mendez, Rabbi Craig Miller, and Islamic Professor R. Bayoumi
2002
Objects of Joy II
Co –curated by Alexandra Munroe (Director, Japan Society Gallery) & Edward Gomez (Critic, NewYork Times, Art & Antiques, Raw Vision)
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
This exhibition brings together works from different time periods and cultural backgrounds to consider the nature of joy in painting, sculpture, jewelry and works on paper.
Tantric Connections
Co –curated by Alexandra Munroe (Director, Japan Society Gallery)
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
An Exhibition of Contemporary and Ancient Works: Nora Aslan, Tibetan Tankas, Indian Tantric works on Paper and Sound Art by Margaret de Wys.
Publications
“Double or Nothing, Mimicry in the Art of Contemporary Handmade Paper, Handpapermaking Magazine, January 2010
Employment Experience
2005 - 2008
Interim Executive Director/Deputy Director/Director of Exhibitions
Dieu Donne Papermill, NY, NY
The Deputy Director for nonprofit artist’s residency and gallery. Responsible for developing strategies to reach the annual fundraising targets of the organization with the Board, design annual benefit, build relationships with foundations, corporate and individual donors and report on institutional progress. Director of Exhibitions, developed and oversaw exhibitions program, including designing curatorial direction of the organization.
Development Director/Curator
Dieu Donne Papermill, NY, NY
The Development Director for nonprofit artist’s residency and gallery. Responsible for developing strategies and fundraising for capital campaign, maintaining annual fundraising targets including developing grant proposals, foundation, corporate and individual donor relations.
2002 - 2004
Curator/Arts & Culture Program Director
Interfaith Center of New York, New York, NY
Curator and Program Director for educational nonprofit organization managing cross-cultural programming. Responsible for all aspects of curating and program development, design and outreach for the Arts & Culture department, creating and organizing more than 14 exhibitions and 50 public events. Responsible for creating new models for exhibitions, focusing on contemporary and historical perspectives. Program Director responsible for creating integrated and relevant programming, including symposiums, panels, lectures, poetry readings and performances with distinguished artists, curators, educators and art critics. Refocused the public programming towards thematic and current events-sensitive topics. Guests have included Patricia Phillips, Nina Felshin, Saul Ostrow, Lynne Tillman, Tony Kushner, Phillip Glass, Mira Schor and others.
2003
Visiting Artist/Curator
LandEscapes
Mount Desert, ME
Weeklong program focusing on the intersections between art and science.
2001 - 2002
Post-Graduate Teaching Assistant
Foundation, Advanced Painting, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
Team-taught with Fine Arts Professor
Graduate Seminar, New York University, New York, NY
Team-taught with Fine Arts Professor
Education
2002
Milton Avery Graduate School for the Fine Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Masters of Fine Arts
Milton Avery Graduate Fellowship 2001
1995
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
Bachelor of Arts – 3.79 GPA
Concentration in Painting, Literature, and Philosophy
Recipient, Sarah Lawrence performance-based grants, accounting for 50% total education costs. Worked 25 hours per week while in school.
Group Exhibitions
2008
Annual Benefit
Dieu Donne, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
Momenta Gallery Benefit
Momenta Gallery/White Columns
Group exhibition and benefit
2007
Per Square Foot
Dieu Donné, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
2005
Shangra La
Dieu Donné, New York, NY
Group exhibition and benefit
2003
Water Marks /Inside-Outside
Mount Desert Symposium on the Arts/LandEscapes
Site-specific installation on the water, Mount Desert, Maine
2002
Generations III
AIR Gallery, New York, NY
An invitational exhibition of emerging and mid-career women artists
2001
Reactions
Exit Art, New York, NY
Responses to the September 11th tragedy.
Milton Avery Graduate School of Fine Arts
Red Hook, NY
MFA Thesis exhibition
1998
Generations II, A Survey of Woman Artists at the Millennium
AIR Gallery, New York, NY
invitational exhibition of emerging and mid-career women artists
1995
First Street Gallery, New York, NY
Finalist, National Competition
Selected Curatorial Projects
2008
Opportunity as Community, Parts One & Two, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Former resident artists invite fellow artists to create new work on Dieu Donné paper
Same Sweet Dream, curated in conjunction with Martina Batan, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
First exhibition featuring new works on Dieu Donné paper by self taught artists.
2007
Emerging Workspace Exhibition, curated by Patricia C. Phillips, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Emerging residency artists from over the last six years present new work. Accompanied by panel discussion on artists workspaces.
Polly Apfelbaum, Basic Divisions, Dieu Donné Gallery, New York, NY
Lab grant residency exhibition featuring new works in paper by the artist. Online video interview with Polly Apfelbaum.
2004
Food, Clothing and Shelter, Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Surveys work by a group of women artists using the categories of food, clothing and shelter within the context of culture or religion to express concepts of domesticity, rebellion, reverence and difference. The show includes installation, photography, painting and video by artists Petah Coyne, Carrie Mae Weems, Phyllis Galembo, Suzanne Bocanegra, Orit Raff, Marion Wilson, Siona Benjamin, Debra Priestly, Suzanne Silver, Elizabeth Riley and Valerie Hird.
2003
Immersion - Curated by Tara Ruth and Patricia Phillips
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
This exhibition explores water and ritual cleansing. The works range from artistic responses to water as the earth’s “circulatory system,” purification of the body, and the containers that facilitate those processes. Included in the exhibition are works by Allan Wexler, Lesley Dill, Carrie Moyer, Kiki Smith, Arlene Shechet, Hope Sandrow, Thomas Lanigan Schmidt, Frances Whitehead, Heide Fasnacht, Suzanne Joelson, Karen Shaw, Mary Beth Reed, Shari Rothfarb, and Martyn Ware.
Sacred Waters
Site Specific Exhibition
Riverside Park at 68th Street
The Interfaith Center of New York in collaboration with The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance & Riverside Park
Site-specific exhibition created by local artists to explore the connection between religion and the environment. Artists Lesley Dill, Nancy Bowen, Kelly Kaczynski, and the team Martyn Ware and Vince Clarke of the Illustrious Co., Ltd., Rotunda Gallery’s KidsArt and Parsons University Graduate Students, with artist Nathalie T.A. Pham. Multi-denominational ritual blessing of water by Hindu, Shinto and Yoruba religious leaders.
A Time to Rebuild: Daniel Libeskind in Exhibition
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Gallery Conversation with Nina Libeskind June 16, 2003
This exhibition looks at the finalist selected to rebuild Lower Manhattan and the spiritual and civic needs it addresses through an exhibition of prints and the architectural model submitted for the site.
Lesley Dill; Tongues on Fire; Visions and Ecstasy
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition and Panel Discussion
A multitiered project Dill created as an artist-in-residence while at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in North Carolina.
“The Word that Means” - Panel Discussion with Lesley Dill, Professor of Art History Erika Doss, Reverend John Mendez, Rabbi Craig Miller, and Islamic Professor R. Bayoumi
2002
Objects of Joy II
Co –curated by Alexandra Munroe (Director, Japan Society Gallery) & Edward Gomez (Critic, NewYork Times, Art & Antiques, Raw Vision)
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
This exhibition brings together works from different time periods and cultural backgrounds to consider the nature of joy in painting, sculpture, jewelry and works on paper.
Tantric Connections
Co –curated by Alexandra Munroe (Director, Japan Society Gallery)
Onisaburo Gallery, New York, NY
An Exhibition of Contemporary and Ancient Works: Nora Aslan, Tibetan Tankas, Indian Tantric works on Paper and Sound Art by Margaret de Wys.
Publications
“Double or Nothing, Mimicry in the Art of Contemporary Handmade Paper, Handpapermaking Magazine, January 2010
Employment Experience
2005 - 2008
Interim Executive Director/Deputy Director/Director of Exhibitions
Dieu Donne Papermill, NY, NY
The Deputy Director for nonprofit artist’s residency and gallery. Responsible for developing strategies to reach the annual fundraising targets of the organization with the Board, design annual benefit, build relationships with foundations, corporate and individual donors and report on institutional progress. Director of Exhibitions, developed and oversaw exhibitions program, including designing curatorial direction of the organization.
Development Director/Curator
Dieu Donne Papermill, NY, NY
The Development Director for nonprofit artist’s residency and gallery. Responsible for developing strategies and fundraising for capital campaign, maintaining annual fundraising targets including developing grant proposals, foundation, corporate and individual donor relations.
2002 - 2004
Curator/Arts & Culture Program Director
Interfaith Center of New York, New York, NY
Curator and Program Director for educational nonprofit organization managing cross-cultural programming. Responsible for all aspects of curating and program development, design and outreach for the Arts & Culture department, creating and organizing more than 14 exhibitions and 50 public events. Responsible for creating new models for exhibitions, focusing on contemporary and historical perspectives. Program Director responsible for creating integrated and relevant programming, including symposiums, panels, lectures, poetry readings and performances with distinguished artists, curators, educators and art critics. Refocused the public programming towards thematic and current events-sensitive topics. Guests have included Patricia Phillips, Nina Felshin, Saul Ostrow, Lynne Tillman, Tony Kushner, Phillip Glass, Mira Schor and others.
2003
Visiting Artist/Curator
LandEscapes
Mount Desert, ME
Weeklong program focusing on the intersections between art and science.
2001 - 2002
Post-Graduate Teaching Assistant
Foundation, Advanced Painting, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
Team-taught with Fine Arts Professor
Graduate Seminar, New York University, New York, NY
Team-taught with Fine Arts Professor
Education
2002
Milton Avery Graduate School for the Fine Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Masters of Fine Arts
Milton Avery Graduate Fellowship 2001
1995
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
Bachelor of Arts – 3.79 GPA
Concentration in Painting, Literature, and Philosophy
Recipient, Sarah Lawrence performance-based grants, accounting for 50% total education costs. Worked 25 hours per week while in school.
Untitled, 201064"" x 58"
Oil on canvas
DetailUntitled, 2010
64"" x 58"
Oil on canvas
Nighttime, 201054" x 54"
Oil on wax on canvas
DetailNighttime, 2010
54" x 54"
Oil on wax on canvas
New Orleans, 200836" x 30
Oil on canvas
DetailNew Orleans, 2008
36" x 30
Oil on canvas
Untitled, 201040" x 40"
Oil on canvas
Drive by (9th ward), 200824" x 20"
Oil on canvas
Shelter, 200740" x 40"
Oil on canvas
Untitled, 201040" x 30"
Oil on canvas
DetailUntitled, 2010
40" x 30"
Oil on canvas
Untitled, 201020" x 24"
Oil, acrylic on canvas
Untitled, 201064"" x 58"
Oil on canvas
DetailUntitled, 2010
64"" x 58"
Oil on canvas
Slick, 201040" x 40"
Oil on canvas
DetailSlick, 2010
40" x 40"
Oil on canvas
Studio shot, 2010
Red sky & flower for matthew, 201020" x 24"
Oil on canvas
Debris, 200824" x 28"
Oil on canvas
studio shot, 2010