Ricardo Ruiz
2017
About the Project
AIR worked with Ricardo Vicente Jose Ruiz for eighteen months supported via a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Ricardo had been developing a lexicon of images and situations related to folkloric evolution of faith healing. The images present disparate scenes of migration and reflection as characters query their place in the universe. The work suggests a nonlinear history of the role immigration plays in occupying lands and locating one's self within the lens of indigenous and minority populations .
Ricardo's drawings were enlarged and printed in several stages allowing for the artist to hand embellish each image. Through that process the artist was able to develop complex spatial and color relationships that reflect the existential spaces occurring within the panels. The collected images are a body of work denoted by the phrase " Late Drag " .
Printers
Matthew George, Quaishawn Whitlock, Michael Budai, Michael Hegedus, Robert Beckman
About Ricardo Ruiz
Ricardo Vicente Jose Ruiz maintains a multidisciplinary practice rooted in drawing in order to engage oral traditions of storytelling and superstition. Ricardo's work reflects on the ability of allegory to make connections within contemporary society and earlier cultures. The everyday rhythms of life are interpreted through images of unknown circumstance and a visual language of symbols. Ricardo extends a deep interest in personal memoir, ritual, and the difficult histories of North America. Engagement with the ascension and regression of civilization throughout history is a fixture within the artist’s work. His work motions towards a presence of wanderlust and ecstasy in a collective need to get lost.
Ricardo was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and has exhibited throughout North America, France, and Germany. He is currently attending Virginia Commonwealth University as a candidate in the Graduate Painting - Printmaking Program.
Artist Statement
There exists a singular narrative of workers, thieves, criminals, and other difficult individuals, caught in a back and forth mire, on their trek to unknown lands. These characters align themselves with socially marginalized individuals whom the artist has known through personal experience while traveling through North America. The work intends to expound on the traumas of discrimination and lack of opportunities afforded to disenfranchised groups but provide a point of healing through spiritual reconciliation and mediation in its discussion. All of the individuals exist as companions on the same plane as they attempt to understand their circumstances and motion towards their next state of being.
