The Drawers - Birgit Ruff  Statement/Resume

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Artist Statement

One of my fondest childhood memories is listening to records of fairytales at my aunt’s house. I listened in awe and wondered as I became one with the world of the imagination. I connected with what Carl Jung would call “the collective archetypes of the unconscious.”

The “Chemical Wedding” series draws on this collective fund of dreams, symbols and fantasies. Based on the male and female reproductive systems, biology becomes symbol through abstraction. In large scale, hybrid drawings, I play with notions of transformation and ambiguity by placing these plant-like and vulnerable parts of the human body into dark mysterious environments.

Miniature collages are based on invertebrate anatomy. Individual pieces are given titles alluding to love from the deconstructed texts of “The Frog Prince” and “Sleeping Beauty.” Tiny detailed collages are highly textured and ask to be handled; they can be shuffled like tarot cards and placed into relational spreads.