Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby (born January 21, 1972) is an American artist who works in a large variety of media including ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, and textiles.

Often, his work is presented in large and densely packed installations.

The artist has cited a diverse range of sources and influences including aberrant psychologies (particularly schizophrenia and paranoia), urban gangs and graffiti, hip-hop culture, craft, punk, masculinity, violence, public art, prisons, globalization, American Domination and decline, waste and consumption.

In opposition to the minimalist artistic tradition and influenced by the ubiquity of urban graffiti, the artist's works often appear scratched, defaced, camouflaged, dirty, or splattered.

Proclaimed as one of the most interesting artists to emerge this century by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, Ruby's work examines the psychological space where individual expression confronts social constraint.

Sterling Ruby currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

His studio is located in Vernon, south of downtown Los Angeles.

Sterling Ruby was born on an American military base in Bitburg, Germany to a Dutch mother and an American father.

His family relocated to the United States shortly after his birth, first to Baltimore, Maryland, and then to the rural town of New Freedom, Pennsylvania.

There he attended the largely agrarian Kennard-Dale High School.

After graduating from high school, Ruby worked in construction in Washington D.C.

Ruby attended The Pennsylvania School of Art and Design, (now the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, PCA&D).

In 2002, he received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

While attending the Art Institute he worked for the Video Data Bank, then under the direction of Kate Horsfield.

In 2003, he moved to Los Angeles to attend the MFA program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

While at Art Center he studied with artists Diana Thater and Richard Hawkins, and theorists Sylvère Lotringer and Laurence Rickels.

While attending graduate school at Art Center he was the teaching assistant for artist Mike Kelley.

Collage

Collage plays a significant role in the artist's prolific and interdisciplinary practice.

Formal and thematic concerns are reflected by an exhaustive range of subject matter which is developed over the course of a number of years.

The titles of the collage series include Mapping, DRFTRS, TRANSCOMPOSITIONAL, SPCE, EXHM, and BC.

The artist has described collage as an "illicit merger", suggesting a transgressive nature for the medium.

EXHM

In the series EXHM, titled with the artist's invented abbreviation for the word exhumation, The artist repurposes the large cardboard pieces used to protect the studio floor from the urethane that is poured during the creation of his urethane sculptures.

Cutting into the cardboard and rearranging formal compositions he finalizes the works by inserting pictures of burial grounds, prescription packages and other found images as a way of creating an autobiographical archeology or dig site.

BC

His bleached denim and canvas collages are titled BC which refers simply to Bleach Collage, but also references the art historical dating reference BC (Before Christ) or BCE (Before the Common Era).

For this series of works, the artist repurposes rags, fabric scraps, clothing, and denim that have personal as well as studio history.

These patchwork collages are playful, almost pop-like, resembling the craft of quilt making.

These works reference the utilitarian beauty of Gee's Bend quilts as well as Japanese Boro textiles.

ECLPSE

The ECLPSE collages are made from cardboard salvaged from the floor coverings in the artist's studio.

The shapes are reminiscent of suns, moons and overlapping landscapes, are painted in bright, primary colors.

Ruby has said of these compositions: 'They continue with themes, theories and concepts that have been central to my previous work, but I have been trying to make them abstract and formal, my attempt to connect to the historical lineage of Suprematism.'

SCALES

SCALES are constructed mobiles.

These works, which the artist views as three-dimensional manifestations of his collages, feature identical monochrome shapes to those evident in the ECLPSE series.

These cardboard shapes are juxtaposed with identifiable scraps of materials and objects from his studio.

Bronzes

Ruby's large bronze sculptures are generally poured in smaller sections, which he then joins together in an almost quilt-like fashion.