In this edition of In Words, artist Ruby Sky Stiler talks about her practice and her upcoming solo show at Nicelle Beauchene.
Ruby Stiler has been photographed on the street, has a boyfriend who speaks for her, and works for a pretty cool boss. Lately, when she’s not making art, she’s been taking driving lessons, hoping to earn her license before she turns 30 this summer.
This month and next, she’s having her first solo exhibit, “High and Low Relief,” at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (through June 14), which she has converted to resemble an attic space with a distressed floor and shortened ceiling. On exhibit are seven works, five sculptures (including the show’s wooden floor) and two wall reliefs, that combine tactile and comic elements. The show includes a related print she made with the Brooklyn print shop Forth Estate.
What follows is her story of her art in words:
I was born in Maine in 1979. My parents divorced when I was 5-ish. Then my Mom had an astrological reading that convinced her we should move to New Mexico, which we did when I was 8-ish. Taos is beautiful but I was so bored there, eventually I quit smoking weed, and had nothing else to do. I was super excited to get to art school (RISD) and I moved to NY after I finished in 2001.
My sister and I never wore clothes growing up, and we would paint our bodies. Body painting with watercolors is my “early work.” I made a small body of work before I went to grad school [Yale, 2006] that was particularly important to my development. These sculptures were based on a very specific idea. The problem with them was that they didn’t evolve beyond what was in my head. So, I reworked them numerous times, and it was then that I discovered my brain is not as smart as my hands are. My intelligence comes through the process of making the object and that’s where I have the potential to learn something and create something unexpected. I don’t really even make sketches anymore. It’s futile for me because I can’t imagine how the thing should be before I work on it.
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