Background
Ruth Root was born in 1967, in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, United States
In 1990, Ruth graduated from Brown University.
111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
In 1993, Root received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago.
1 Art School Road, Skowhegan, ME 04950, Madison, ME 04950, United States
In 1994, Root attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, United States
In 1990, Ruth graduated from Brown University.
111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
In 1993, Root received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago.
1 Art School Road, Skowhegan, ME 04950, Madison, ME 04950, United States
In 1994, Root attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Ruth Root was born in 1967, in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
In 1990, Ruth graduated from Brown University. Then, she continued her education at the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1993. The following year, in 1994, Root also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Ruth creates hard-edge abstractions, as well as eye-popping patterns, incorporating found imagery from news media, art history, online search engines and other objects.
In 2001, the artist gave lectures at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
During her career, Ruth has taken part in many exhibitions, including "Kosmobiologie" at the Bellwether Gallery in Brooklyn, "Abstract Redux" at the Danese Gallery in New York City, as well as "Son-of-a-Guston" at Clementine Gallery in New York City. In addition, she participated in international exhibitions, including those, held at Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska in Austria, Galeria Marta Cervera in Spain, Seattle Art Museum and Galleria Franco Noero, in Torino, Italy.
Ruth lives and works in New York City.
Ruth Root is a well-known artist, who gained prominence for her hard-edge abstractions, consisting of rectangles and other simple shapes in a limited brightly colored palette.
Root received several awards, including the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's Grant and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting, both in 1996. Since 2006, the record price for the artist's works at auction has been $20,436 for the work "Untitled", sold at Phillips, London, in 2016.
Ruth's works are kept in public collections of different museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Honolulu Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, among others.
Ruth's earlier works exhibited an obvious debt to the 1960's and the 1970's Minimalism, but they felt more accessible, than classic, chilly Minimalism. Painted with enamel on aluminum, that had been cut into irregular geometric shapes, they looked a bit like giant envelopes, opened up and flattened out. Root’s new works are paradoxically more minimal and yet more opulent.
The real difference in the new works, however, is that Ruth has unleashed a firestorm of patterns. The plexiglass portions look like controlled graffiti, while the printed fabric is more staid. Juxtaposed, they create a visual riot, that’s like having a viewer's eyes dilated and examined. Conceptually, they wander into the argument between what is "image" and what is "pattern", a battle, in which pattern — seen historically in European and American art as feminine and decorative — was treated as less rigorous and important.
Root's artistic influences include Nathalie du Pasquier, Nicola L, Miyoko Ito, Sonia Delauney and Chris Burden.
