Ruti de Vries
BFA graduate from HaMidrasha and MFA graduate from Bezalel. Had solo exhibitions at the Artists’ Residence Herzliya, HaKibbutz Gallery, HaHanut, Dana Gallery, HaMidrasha and the Biennale for Drawing in Jerusalem. Participated in group exhibitions at Tel Aviv Artists’ House, Petach Tikva Museum, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Janco Dada Museum, MoBY and more. A Recipient of the Young Artist award from the Ministry of Culture, Rabinovich Foundation award, Mifal HaPais Prize and excellence awards during her studies. De Vries refers to her artistic practice as an ever-expanding spiral that constantly gathers new motifs and materials which crystallize into an enigmatic and personal mythology that haunts her works. She is influenced by ancient art, folklore, marginalized art and the worlds of fashion, theater, and puppetry. Over the years, she has compiled a diverse lexicon of images, materials, themes and contexts that she often returns to. De Vries' works are made of available, cheap, everyday materials or found objects such as nylon, black garbage bags, rags, stickers, foil, linen, felt, raffia palms, broom hair, cardboard, paper and tarpaulin. These materials allow her to build transient environments which transform space into a type of flat theater set. Her works often exist in the gap between the two- and three-dimensional, between the object and the material from which it is made and between the coveted image and its artificial representation. Craft, as an idea and as a work process, plays a key role in her practice as it enables not only an aesthetic, conceptual and functional action, but also carries within it cultural, mythological, folkloristic and biblical meanings. Elements associated with craft aesthetics such as adornment, decoration and symmetry are often present in her work.
