February 23 - April 1, 2017
523 WEST 25TH ST NYC 10001 nancymargolisgallery.com
GINA RUGGERI
February 23 – April 1, 2017 Reception: Thursday, February 23, 6-8pm It is with great pleasure the Nancy Margolis Gallery is to present Gina Ruggeri’s solo exhibition opening February 23 through April 1, 2017. The reception for the artist will be held onThursday, February 23, 6pm to 8pm. NMG has had a long relationship with the artist covering a six-year span that began in 2011 with her first solo exhibition with the gallery. As the director of NMG, I have had the opportunity to observe closely her practice, her painting style, and not least her intense and thoughtful critical reflection. The body of work first introduced to me was her illusionary Mylar cutout paintings and related works on paper. Those Mylar paintings, large in scale, combined an exacting trompe l’oeil realism with imaginative installation. In this new body of work, Ruggeri significantly departs from illusionism and exactitude in favor of improvisation, indeterminacy, and continuously emerging possibilities. Following her last solo show at NMG in 2011, Ruggeri made a conscious decision to forgo her earlier painting process in search of a new language. This required an upheaval of her approach, and she began an extended period of research and experimentation with different materials and methods. Through this intensive exploration, Ruggeri worked in a variety of surfaces and arrangements, eventually finding fertile territory in the form of the vivid works on display here. It is correct to identify this new work as painting, but to accurately classify it, it is important to describe more about the process. Sections of varied fabrics of multiple shapes and sizes are painted vibrantly with freehand patterns and pours, drawn upon, cut out, layered and collaged together. The suppleness of the fabric allows for twists or folds to be attached flat, in differing directions and topographies. In her free form collage method, contours of improvised cut shapes determine the works’ forms and dimensions. The overall effect depends on color saturation, thickness of paint, compositional positioning and juxtaposition of one piece to the next. The end result is a painting assembled with spontaneity, without preconception, a complex abstract painting with a dimensional surface, rich in color, and attached as a tapestry might be, suspended loosely and slightly away from the wall. Though these paintings are mature in their new expression, I suspect that the artist will look on them as starting points. It is in Ruggeri’s character to not stay still, and to view her work in flux as she continues in her searching process.
Purple Remnants, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 41” x 61”
GINA RUGGERI
ROBERT MARSHALL
Robert Marshall is a novelist and visual artist living in New York City. He is the author of A Separate Reality, published by Carroll & Graf in 2006.
In her new work, Gina Ruggeri leaps from the careful Apollonian order for which she’s been known. Gone the delicately wrought trompe-l’oeil. Gone the controlled paint application, the meticulously designed structure. Suddenly, all bets are off. All inhibitions seem to have vanished. Looking at these collage paintings, I know I’m entering an unstable, uncertain world. In her pictures, I can’t tell what’s in front. Or what’s in back? My eye is seduced, following her doodly lines across the visually mutating puzzles, then refused, by sudden blocks of strident color. Matisse’s armchair is not to be found. There is no place to rest. As my eye and I roam, I think for a moment I can almost smell the fumes of Ruggeri’s seemingly alchemical process. What ingredients is she using? On a literal level: found, painted and cut fabrics. But the literal isn’t my concern. I want to know how these colors can possibly work together: lovely pinks and bile-greens. Such an odd thing that they do. And the shapes: I’m reminded of mediuminspired automatic drawing, the sand paintings of André Masson, of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and of Disney animation at its weirdest (the “acid scene’ in Dumbo). This work’s a trip. I don’t know where it’s taking me. I just know it’s some place new.
Embedded Red, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 80” x 66”
Housespace, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 106” x 105”
Quips and Gripes (Strips and Stripes), 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 92” x 118”
Negative Orange, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 48” x 57”
There Isn’t There, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 40” x 35”
Patchwork Infinitum, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 114” x 118”
Click photo to watch Gina Ruggeri’s interview video. (video duration: 17:58)
Casting: Clinging, 2016 Acrylic and ink on cloth 62” x 65”
No Recall, 2017 Acrylic and ink on cloth 69.5” x 45.5”
GINA RUGGERRI EDUCATION 1996 1992 1991
MFA, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT BFA, summa cum laude, The Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD Yale Summer School of Art, Norfolk, CT
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2017 2016 2011 2011 2010 2008 2006 2004 2003 2002
Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY 101/Exhibit, Los Angeles, CA Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY The Gallery @ 1GAP, Brooklyn, NY Gina Ruggeri, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY Gina Ruggeri: Immaterial Landscape, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield CT Gina Ruggeri, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA Gina Ruggeri: New Paintings, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL Gina Ruggeri: New Paintings, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL Gina Ruggeri: New Work, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL Gina Ruggeri: New Paintings, Red Dot, New York, NY Guest Artist Exhibition, Tenri Biennale, Tenri, Japan. Gina Ruggeri: New Work, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 2015 2014 2013
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007
Cloudlands, Albany International Airport Gallery, Albany NY Prime Matter, Teckingsmuseet, Laholm, Sweden MICA: Then/Now, Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ Prime Matter, Senaspace, New York, NY MICA: Then/Now, Kunsthalle Beacon (KuBe), Beacon, NY Doing and Undergoing, Teacher’s College at Columbia University, NY Koi No Yokan, 101 Exhibit, Los Angeles, CA CAST PARTY, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY Speakers, 111 Front Street Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Out of the Ruins: Reimagining the Romantic Tradition, New Art Center, Newton, MA Permanent Collection, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY Greenhouse, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL April Sky, Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn, NY Works on Paper, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY Figment, Kumukumu Gallery, New York, NY Infinitesimal Eternity, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT Hyper-Nature, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, OH The Outer Space, Pluto Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Primary; William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ Running Around the Pool: Contemporary Drawing, Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL Paper Now, I-space, Chicago, IL The Eclectic Eye: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA
2006 2006 2005
Queens International 2006, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, NY Refined, Lyons Wier Ortt Contemporary, New York, NY 181st Annual: An Invitational Exhibition; The National Academy of Design, New York, NY 3 Painters: Meghan Brady, Karen Dow, Gina Ruggeri, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA Selections ’05, The Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY Resurfaced, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, MA New Work, The Schoolhouse Galleries, Provincetown, MA
HONORS & AWARDS 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2002
Fellowship, Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2014 residency) Fellowship, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, Catwalk Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Artist-in-Residence, Grand Canyon Nat. Park, AZ Fellowship in Painting, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Yaddo Artist Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY Fellowship, VCCA Artist Residency, Amherst, VA Fellowship, Yaddo Artist Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY Fellowship, Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY Special Editions Fellowship, The Lower East Side Printshop. Grant Recipient, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program. Selected artist, Guest Artist Competition, Tenri Biennale.
PUBLICATIONS 2016 2016 2016 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
Artists to Artists, Vol. 2; Sharpe-Walentas Foundations. Prime Matter, exhibition catalog. Doing and Undergoing, exhibition catalog. April Sky, exhibition catalog Ramirez-Montagut, Monica, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, solo exhibition brochure Infinitesimal Eternity: Images Made in the Face of Spectacle, catalogue. Primary, exhibition catalogue. Running Around the Pool: Contemporary Drawing, exhibition catalogue. New American Paintings #68, Northeast Edition. Queens International 2006, exhibition catalogue. Rippner, Samantha, Editions ’06, Lower East Side Printshop catalogue. 3 Painters: Meghan Brady, Karen Dow, Gina Ruggeri, exhibition catalogue. Art Basel Miami Beach 2005, exhibition catalogue. Resurfaced, exhibition brochure. Turner, Elisa. “Critic’s Pick.” The Herald (Miami, May). Einspruch, Franklin. “Culture clash.” Street Miami (May 7–13). New American Paintings #50, Northeast Edition. Tenri Biennale 2003, exhibition catalogue.
Please contact the gallery for more information: margolis@nancymargolisgallery.com 212 242 3013 523 W. 25th Street. New York. NY 10001 www.nancymargolisgallery.com
Catalog © 2017 NANCY MARGOLIS GALLERY Courtesy of Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York and Gina Ruggeri © Gina Ruggeri Photography © Gina Ruggeri All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any other means, electronic or mechanical now known or hereafter invented, without written permission of publisher.