"Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me", Solo Exhibition at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, May 20 - June 24 2023
Floor Piece: “Tidal Pool” 2023, 55gal of water, lead sheeting, found debris, raw clay
"
04 — Someone recently asked Brie what happens to the water in the clay when she fires the fragments.
A
literal answer is water evaporates, its loss can be measured.
A less literal answer is perhaps transformation requires a type of loss that is difficult to locate.“
—-Excerpt from the exhibition text by Caitlin Lorraine Johnson
Photo by Marten Elder
Video Walk-through of the exhibition, run time: 6min
Counting Down (Father Time), 130lbs, 2023 ,Glazed stoneware, hardware 82 x 80 x 3.25 in
Photo by Nik Massey
"Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me", Solo Exhibition at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, May 20 - June 24 2023
Photo by Marten Elder
Three Orbiting Bodies (130lbs times three) , 2023, 105 x 106 x 8” Pigmented stoneware, glaze, hardware
Photo by Nik Massey
LEFT: Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me, 9 min video, projected with circular maskMIDDLE: Spreading Outward, Full Moon, 130lbs, 2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 81.25 x 80.75 x 2.5 inches
RIGHT: Spreading Outward, Waxing Gibbous, 130lbs ,2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 77.25 x 80 x 2 inches
Photo by Marten Elder
LEFT: Spreading Outward, Waxing Crescent, 130lbs ,2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 76.75 x 79.75 x 3
MIDDLE: Spreading Outward, New Moon, 130lbs ,2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 77.25 x 74.75 x 3.25 inches
RIGHT: Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me, 9 min video, projected with circular mask
Photo by Marten Elder
Spreading Outward, First Quarter, 130lbs ,2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 79.75 x 79.75 x 3
Photo by Marten Elder
"06 — Many of the titles in the show come from phases of the moon: Waxing Crescent, New Moon, Full Moon.
I think of how, during the night, people look directly into the face of moon but can’t feel the warmth on their skin. "
--Excerpt from the exhibition text by Caitlin Lorraine Johnson
Spreading Outward, Waxing Crescent, 130lbs ,2023 Glazed stoneware, hardware 76.75 x 79.75 x 3
Photo by Nik Massey
Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me, 9 min video, 2023
Edited by Meryl O'Connor
Third Body (130lbs times two) ,2023
Glazed stoneware, hardware
76 x 137.5 x 2.5”
photo by Nik Massey
Installation View, Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery, London. October 26, 2022 - January 8, 2023
Artwork on pedastal by Beate Kuhn, Photo by Mark Blower
Intertwining Bodies, Roots, Hair (130lbs times three), 2022. 165 x 63 x 8”
Installation view, Plant Dreaming Deep, Cooper Cole, Toronto, November 2022. Photo by Jessann Reece
Installation View, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, albertz benda gallery, NYC. Dec 9, 2021 - Jan 22, 2022
Photo by Stefan Hagen
Digging In, Digging Out, 2021. Video, 12 minutes
Production credit to Studio Scala of Santa Fe, and Denise Lynch, steward of the ancient Puebloan clay mine in the Galisteo Basin, New Mexico
It is said that the body holds experiences and memories in ways that the mind does not. In Brie Ruais’s second solo exhibition at albertz benda, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, the body is transmuted in clay, and forms emerge through material confrontation and collaboration. In exploring themes of embodiment, Ruais’ work further reflects upon the relationship between an individual's psychical interior world and the corporeal exterior world.
Installation View, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, albertz benda gallery, NYC.
Photo by Timothy Doyon
Installation View, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, albertz benda gallery, NYC.
Work on right: Scraping Through the Skin of the Sky, 130lbs, 2021. Glazed stoneware, hardware. 65 x 66 x 3 inches
Photo by Stefan Hagen
Installation View, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, albertz benda gallery, NYC.
Work in center: Intertwining, 130lbs times two (Thief Knot), 2021. Glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware. 62 x 124 x 6 inches
Photo by Stefan Hagen
Installation View, Some Things I Know About Being in a Body, albertz benda gallery, NYC.
Letting the Fire In, 130lbs, 2021, Pit fired stoneware, hardware, 67 x 67 x 3 inches
Made with Studio Scala, Santa Fe. Photo by Timothy Doyon
Spread Out, Torn, Scattershot, 130bs. 2021, 76 x 77 x 3 inches, Underglaze on stoneware, hardware
Photo by Timothy Doyon
Brie Ruais: Movement at the Edge of the Land
Moody Center for the Arts, Summer 2021. Curated by Frauke V. Josenhans
Photo by Nash Baker
Ruais conceived a site-specific exhibition for the Moody Center for the Arts that evokes a powerful encounter with the elements through large-scale ceramic sculpture. Working with the equivalent of her body’s weight in clay, Ruais’ relationship with the material allows her to explore themes of embodiment, materiality, and the interdependence of the human and ecological worlds. (- Frauke V. Josenhans)
Uncontrollable Drifting Inward and Outward Together (130lbs times two), 2021, Glazed stoneware, rocks, hardware, 90 x 172.5 x 2.5 in. Photo by Nash Baker
Detail: Uncontrollable Drifting Inward and Outward Together (130lbs times two), 2021, Glazed stoneware, rocks, hardware, 90 x 172.5 x 2.5 in
The floor installation Withdrawing Body, Emerging Earth is made of eight mounds of dirt, gravel, and rubble, arranged in a circle that continues beyond the building.
The gallery’s wall of glass bisects one mound, bridging the inside to the outside and revealing the false boundaries between the constructed and natural environment. The porosity created by the windows provides a line of sight and a path for movement, allowing the viewer to experience both proximity to and removal from the materials that articulate our everyday lives. ( - F. Josenhans, Photo by Nash Baker)
The works in each gallery generate and inhabit two apparently opposite spaces, the desert and the shore. The resulting contrast illustrates the dualities that define our society: the margins and the center; the mind and body; the natural and human worlds. Each gallery prompts a physical and sensorial experience through the engagement with the earth-colored, emergent ceramic sculptures. ( - F. Josenhans, Photo by Nash Baker)
Gravel Pit Gestures, Mine & Yours, 2020, Archival pigment print , 30 1/2 x 45 3/4 in
While creating this series of earthworks that she began in 2019, Ruais considered surveillance photography as a perspective from which to document the relationship between the body and the land. Each earthwork was documented with a drone camera from a bird’s-eye view, which emphasizes not only the monumental scale difference between an indivudal body and the expansive landscape, but also the human and machine marks embedded in the land. (-FJ)
Withdrawing Body, Emerging Earth, 2021, Glazed ceramic, raw clay, dirt, rocks, gravel, construction debris.
Photo by Nash Baker
The outdoor works manifest as sculptures in two parts: ceramic perimeter sculptures surround holes dug in the ground, while the innner forms rest on the dirt piles nearby. These interventions in the landscape imitate the impressions made by the artist’s own body. (-FJ)
The installation in this gallery alternates moving images with static sculptures to evoke the shore as a liminal space where disorientation and disintegration lead to transformatiom. The installation brings the viewer face-to-face with the powerful push-and-pull of waves at the edge of the land. (-FJ)
Interweaving the Landscape (six times 130lbs), 2020, Pigmented and glazed stoneware, hardware, 128 x 225 x 7 inches
Photo by Nash Baker. Collage with photo of contrails in Nevada sky.
This piece is composed of six forms, each 130lbs, that are woven together into a grid on the wall. The forms move independently of each other, but always acknowledge each other through their shared traversal of the same plane. The horizontal lines reference a landscape: it’s sky and layered horizon; while the vertical curving lines reference features cutting through that landscape that hold and knit it together: rivers, trees, the sun. (-B.Ruais)
Tidal Movement, 2019, Video still
I made a performance with clay at the beach in the Fall of 2019. I placed 130lbs of clay where the water meets the shore, a shifting location which changes by the minute with the tide. This was a site that would never be fixed, and so I moved with it, pushing the clay up the shore with the incoming wave, and towards the ocean as it went out. It was like learning to dance with a new partner. In ten minutes the clay became saturated with water and disintegrated. The human body is about 60% water, a female body has a cycle that corresponds with the moon’s, and yet syncing up with this staccato tidal rhythm felt impossible. (-B.Ruais)
(Video production by Zane Harris and Meryl O'Connor)
Installation view: Brie Ruais: Movement at the Edge of the Land, 2021, Moody Center for the Arts, Photo by Nash Baker
Compressing Eastward, Three Times 130lbs, 2021, Glazed stoneware, hardware, 69 x 60 x 6.5 inches. Photo by Nash Baker. Collaged with image of New Mexican badlands
Ruais cultivated this gesture of compression in response to the urban space surrounding her, in NYC, on an island pressed between land and sea.
These are three entities (perhaps human, perhaps geological) transformed by forces that act upon them. Three thin expanses of clay on the floor were pushed
in succession against the wall. Each consectutive rammed form was shaped by and nested into the previous one. (-FJ)
Detail: Compressing Eastward, Three Times 130lbs, 2021, Glazed stoneware, hardware, 69 x 60 x 6.5 inches
Compressing from West and East, Six Times 135 lbs, 2020. Glazed stoneware, hardware, 74 x 128 x 6 inches. Photo by Nash Baker
The exhibition reflects the inspiration that the artist finds in the varying environments she inhabits, the urban landscape of New York City bounded by the sea, and the open deserts of the Southwest. By provoking an encounter with them, the exhibition lends tension and beauty in the body’s relationship to the elemental world. (-FJ)
Installation of Night Gallery Exhibition Spiraling Open and Closed like an Aperture, November 2020
The things we build, the things we let fall apart, the things we destroy, 2020, Unfired stoneware, rocks , Dimensions variable, 36 feet by 12 feet
Turning Over, 128lbs of clay and another of rocks and rubble, 2020, Glazed and pigmented stoneware, rocks, rubble, hardware, 80 x 78 x 4 inches
Collaged with an aerial photo of Owen's Lake, CA
In the Crosshairs, 2020 , Archival pigment print , 30 1/2 x 45 3/4 in
With and Against, 2020, Archival pigment print, 30 1/2 x 45 3/4 in
Circling Inward and Outward, 128 lbs, 2020, Glazed and pigmented stoneware, rocks, hardware, 96 x 92 x 3 inches
Collaged with photo of tire tracks in desert saltscape
Detail: Circling Inward and Outward, 128 lbs, 2020
Enveloping, Merging, and Expanding, two times 130 lbs, 2020, Glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware, 100 x 103 x 3 inches
Collaged with photo of tire tracks at gravel pit
Desiccating From Center (Salton Sea), 130lbs, 2019. Glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware. 83 x 80 x 2 inches. Detail below
Collaged with photo of the Salton Sea, CA
Installation image of the exhibition WAYS, at albertz benda gallery, NYC, 2019
From left to right: Making Space From the Inside, 130 lbs (Tight Squeeze), 2019. Glazed stoneware, hardware. 65 x 59 x 2.5 inches
Making Space From the Inside, 130 lbs (Black Ice Thaw), 2019. 70 x 64 x 2.5 inches
Making Space From the Inside, 130 lbs (Fully Dilated), 2019. 78 x 70 x 3 inches
Photo by Stefan Hagen
Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre, two times 135lbs, 2018, 130 x 67 x 3.5 inches, Pigmented stoneware, transparent glaze, hardware. Photo by Nash Baker
Interweaving the Landscape (four times 130lbs), 2018. Glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware. 96 x 152 x 8 inches
Installation image of the Topology of a Garden Series in the exhibition WAYS, at albertz benda gallery, NYC, 2019. Photo by Stefan Hagen
Topology of a Garden, Northeast, 135 lbs, 2018. Pigmented stoneware, acrylic paint, hardware. 72 x 88 x 2.5 inches
Collaged with photo of the clay sculpture being made in the artists' garden.
Detail: Topology of a Garden, South, 132 lbs, 2018. Pigmented stoneware, underglaze, hardware. 49 x 90 x 2.5 inches
Attempting to Contain the Center, 2018. Videostill
Attempting to Hold the Center, 135 lbs, 2018. Glazed stoneware, hardware. 44 x 44 x 9 inches
Installation of solo exhibition at Night Gallery, LA, April 2018
Gathering the Folds, 135 lbs, 2018. Glazed stoneware, hardware. 61 x 47 x 4.5 inches
Collaged with screengrab of the film "Hiroshima Mon Amour", 1959
Premonition of a Butterfly, India Ink and 130 lbs of Clay, 2016, Video, 9 minutes
Broken Ground Red (130lbs of clay spread out from center), 2017. Glazed stoneware, hardware. 77 x 77 x 3 inches
Collaged with photo of Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, New Mexico
Blue Perimeter (Push your body weight in clay in a clockwise circle until the end becomes the beginning), 2016
62 x 62 x 4 inches, Pigmented stoneware, transparent glaze, hardware. Collaged with photo from a road trip.
With Their Inners Woven (2x 130 lbs), 2017, 94 x 88 x 6.5 inches, Glaze stoneware, wood, hardware. Collaged with risograph.
Red Pushes 1, 2, and 3 (130lbs each), 2017, Each measures approximately 72 x 23 x 14 inches, Glazed ceramic
Performance still, 2012
Collaged with image of tractor tracks in mud.
Installation image of "130lbs of Proximal Frontage" at Mesler/Feuer Gallery, NYC 2015
Right: Double Unzipped, 450 lbs, 2015. Pigmented and glazed stoneware, hardware. Sculpture in three parts, 108 x 89 x 4.5 inches
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According to the Body, solo exhibition at Youngworld, Detroit, 2016
Front: How to Wander (Push double your body weight in clay in a spiral, create hiccups along the way, then arbitrarily strike out in one direction.) 260lbs, 2016, Unfired clay
How One Can Be Two, 300 lbs (Two people’s combined body weight in clay), 2013, Pigmented and glazed stoneware, hardware
Sculpture in two parts. Ring: 89 x 84 x 3 in, Circle: 59 x 55 x 6 in
In imitation of Push Ahead, Turn 180 degrees, Repeat (132 lbs., Yellow and Violet), 2014, 90 x 40 x 3 inches, Glazed stoneware, hardware
All artwork, photos, and collage are Copyright Brie Ruais 2022, unless otherwise noted.