Ruth Ross Gallery
Artist Bio
Ruth Ross graduated Parson’s School of Design in New York City with a degree in Graphic Design and continued to paint throughout her career as a Graphic Designer. As a VP Art Director at Random House, where she remained for 18 years, she had the opportunity to practice and hone her visual skills as applied to the world of publishing, by designing book covers, and people skills, by interacting with the multitudes of publishing professionals whose voices and opinions permeated the cover designs.
In 2000 she left New York and moved to Portland, Oregon, to devote herself to designing and making one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry. There Ruth learned the basics of metal-smithing and combined her love of found objects, fabric and buttons, with silver, to create a body of work. The work was exhibited at the Widney Moore Gallery in Portland Oregon and Julie Artisans’ Gallery, New York City.
For the past 10 years she returned to her first art practices: painting, printmaking and photography. Recently Ruth started experimenting with printing, both mono and cyanotype to vintage textile and then embellishing and embroidering to tell her story. She has exhibited her work at Gallery 114, the Artists Repertory Theatre, Bite Studio, and the Multnomah Art Center, all in Portland Oregon.
Artist Statement
I am 78 years old now. The drama of my younger self, making an appearance, either personal or product, is no longer my drama. My drama is in my interaction with what is in me, hidden in my psyche, hidden in my memory.
In my most recent years I have begun to utilize the so-called “feminine arts,” sewing and embroidery. I am fascinated by the remnants of history that I find on tattered fabric and stained lace. I strive to incorporate those histories into my own history by printing and layering my personal symbols to textile through lithography, monotype, linoleum prints, gelatin prints, and cyanotype.
The ordinary: aprons and undergarments have become my passion. And the extraordinary:
the unfolding of life, an embryo, or the replacement of a hip. My work is defined
now by my age: released and soaring.
www.ruthrossart.com
