I went to see the Sterling Ruby show in London over the weekend, I first saw his work properly about six months ago and I was immediately captivated by the monumental sculptures, some looking really dirty, many dripping down over their base, they had a real unfinished look to them that I really enjoy in art works.
When I was reading about him I was also interested in his background as a pro skateboarder and playing in punk bands, having spent most of my teenage years with a group of male friends who all play in bands, skateboard and frequently discuss politcal and social issues for whole evenings at a time… there was something strangely familiar about Ruby’s work…
A while back, I can’t remember if someone said it or I read it but basically the idea of everyone needing to relate to art works and that perhaps you would only like works if you related to it, I didn’t feel (at the time) that this idea had a lot of weight and was thinking that really you can relate to any work of art because it is you looking at it and interpreting the information, so how could you not?
I suppose Ruby’s work has really made me go back to that idea and consider how important that is to me and to other people… it has made me think about where my work really comes from and that perhaps I could benefit from thinking about the importance of how I relate to my own practice…
Anyway, the show was amazing, my favourite pieces in the show were the fabric collages in the second gallery, they were made of old bits of clothing, rags from around his studio and scraps of fabric, I have experimented with ideas of using the spilled paint, old scraps in my studio to create work and it was great to see an artist working on similar principles to create some really exciting and sucessful works. The resulting compositions were really interesting and transformed the materials into something completely different somehow.
