The Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby has often described his creative strategy as “schizophrenic.” By that he means it is multidisciplinary and pulls energy from his shifts between mediums. “It has taken me years to convey that this scattered routine belongs within a coherent trajectory,” Ruby told Flash Art in 2016. “Works may not look the same formally, they might not even be within the same medium, but there is a lineage that links everything that I do together.” Born in 1972, on an American military base in Bitburg, Germany, Ruby worked in construction after high school, a job that introduced him to many of the materials he uses in his work. Wood, spray paint, bleach, and various metals are often employed to convey the violence produced by societal pressures and expectations. The exhibition “Atropa” presents a new collection of more muted works; they range from pen-and-ink studies to drawings to watercolor collages. —Maggie Turner