Artist: Ruti de Vries
Exhibition title: Wild Heart
Venue: Ha’Kibbutz gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
Date: April 20 – May 20, 2017
Photography: Liat Elbling, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Ha’Kibbutz gallery
“… And in her big dark dark eyes there was a passive sweetness of a deep, irrepressible savagery, similar to foreknowledge. In fact, foreknowledge is not the right word, since it is not about knowledge. It will be more accurate to say that what was strange in these eyes was reminiscent of the mysterious stupidity of animals, who “know” not through knowledge but through a certain sense of their vulnerable body, the past and the future of every destiny. This sense of theirs that merges with their other physical senses – I would call the sense of holiness …”
(Elsa Morante, “History: A Novel”)
In her show ‘Wild Heart’, Ruti de Vries displays a site-specific installation which spreads throughout the gallery, is made of low-cost and raw materials and is characterized by an excessiveness of images. Many of the works take the figures of animals, and are the outcome of an extensive research of the image of the animal in culture and : its historic power relations with the human being. The animal may be seen as subordinated to and as property of the human, but in many mythologies it is also described as its host which guides him through the world.
Alongside the monumental sculptures, the exhibition also includes various hand-made decorative molds which were produced in a toiling crafted process and are hung as floor carpets or wallpapers in the gallery. They create a kind of a-hierarchical an a-dependent mixture of languages and signs from biblical and mythological origins and folklore. The decorativeness, repetition and symmetry function here not just an aesthetic component, but also a means to touch upon gender and culture questions. Basic forms, patterns and materials are always already a symbolic mean to present the order of the world.
Ruti De Vries (b. 1989, Tel Aviv) lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel. She holds a B.ED in Education and Fine Arts from Hamidrasha, Beit Berl College, Israel and a MFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Israel. She has participated in solo and group shows at Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel; MoBY: Museums of Bat Yam, Bat Yam, Israel; Janco Dada Museum, Ein Hod, Israel; Petach Tikva Museum, Petach Tikva, Israel and The 6th National Drawing Biennale, Jerusalem, Israel, among others. She is a 2016 recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Culture Young Artist Prize; The Yehoshua Rabinovitz Foundation Grant, 2015; and participated in the artists career development programs of Artis, Asylum Arts and Artport.
Ruti de Vries, Broom flowers, 2017, broom hair, cleaning cloths, stickers, fabrics, wool, 120X120cm
Ruti de Vries, Crying Eyes, 2017, paper, door panel, plastic, wool, 120X100 cm
Ruti de Vries, Flower bar, 2017, wood, plastic, raffia, balls, cleaning cloth, shoe laces, stickers, Variable dimensions
Ruti de Vries, Nocturno, 2017, flax, beads, ropes, stickers, cleaning cloths, 100X300cm
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Wild Heart, 2017, Installation view, Ha’Kibbutz gallery
Ruti de Vries, Pitchforks and Walnuts, 2017, flax, plastic, rope, walnuts, beads, Variable dimensions
Ruti de Vries, Napkin holder, 2017, wood, paper, wool, 30X200X10 cm
Ruti de Vries, NNN, 2017, wool, beads, nails, wood, 40X60 cm
Ruti de Vries, Triptych Nicol, 2017, machine embroidery on cleaning cloths, 180X140 cm each
Ruti de Vries, Triptych Nicol, 2017, machine embroidery on cleaning cloths, 180X140 cm each
Ruti de Vries, Carpet Head, 2017, carpet, fabric, beads, 30X20 cm
Ruti de Vries, Snake lady, 2017, paper, plastic, straw, wool, plasticine, 200X220 cm
Ruti de Vries, Chess, 2017, plasticine, wood, leafs, cardboard, Variable dimensions
Ruti de Vries, Micha, 2017, cushion seat, chair, flax, paint, raffia, Variable dimensions
Ruti de Vries, Micha, 2017, cushion seat, chair, flax, paint, raffia, Variable dimensions
Ruti de Vries, Invitation, 2017, Digital painting