For Brie Ruais, a Brooklyn-based sculptor, the body is at the heart of her practice. And not just the body, but the strength and labor that art requires of it. Ruais’s gorgeous ceramic abstractions—sunbursts, sandstorms, stalagmites—are born from her energetic stomping, kicking, stretching, and raking of clay, dirt, and gravel. Though individual works are approximately the size of a human body, each functions in relation to the next while blending seamlessly with surroundings both architectural and natural. In this exhibition, Ruais tells stories about the American West, her shapes both astral and earthen, wall-mounted and situated on the floor. This is Ruais’s first institutional solo exhibition. —E.C.