Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Sterling Ruby: A Relief Lashed + A Still Pose

June 18 – Aug 1, 2020
44 rue Van Eyck, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Sterling Ruby’s four-acre studio teems with ceramics, flags, tapestries, dismantled machinery, and old denim. He needs the space because he doesn’t like to throw anything away. Ruby works in diverse media and in a new series of assemblages, drawn from a series of paintings exhibited in 2018, Ruby focuses on wood. He uses packing crates, damaged pallets, and even pieces from his late mother’s barn in Freedom, Pennsylvania, to create 3-D bricolages that suggest the depth and quiet of windows. These eloquent wall sculptures serve as metaphors for hope, escape, and the possibilities of the unknown. —E.C.