AVET, Conduit Gallery, Dallas Texas
on view January 13 -February 17th 2018
from the press release:
Avet, the Bosnian word for apparition or ghost, is a reference to Ruznic’s creative process of pulling her characters out of nothingness. Ruznic’s first exhibition at Conduit Gallery (2014) populated the Project Room space with figurative works on paper; the figures seemingly pulled out of washy pools of ink. Artificially long features and limbs wrapped and coiled around the subjects at times deeming the figure almost borderless.
Working now with oil on canvas, Ruznic’s latest pictures verge on total abstraction, yet upon inspection, figures emerge, seemingly wandering through unnamed landscapes. Ruznic describes the process of composing each image as conjuring a memory and the redeeming of essential details as she paints with “the drunken hand”, an intuitive impluse that knows something the artist may not. This looseness of intention allows Ruznic to start with the lightest of stains on canvas or the manipulation of small fabric scraps until a face feels familiar. Applying thin layers of oil pigment onto the canvas with soft bristled make-up brushes allows Ruznic to leave the weave of the canvas exposed, displaying its organic nature and allowing for a sense of breath from the substrate.
As Ruznic’s figures emerge, they are perhaps asking the viewer to be held, to be helped. An empathy which can bridge the gap between the polarity and extremes of today’s political turmoil. Ruznic states, “Painting and stitching allow me to sift through my ideas about who they might have been. I make them up as I go, wiping and staining the surface of the canvas until a face feels familiar. The scraps of fabric make up entire little individuals who dance to help me remember.”
on view January 13 -February 17th 2018
from the press release:
Avet, the Bosnian word for apparition or ghost, is a reference to Ruznic’s creative process of pulling her characters out of nothingness. Ruznic’s first exhibition at Conduit Gallery (2014) populated the Project Room space with figurative works on paper; the figures seemingly pulled out of washy pools of ink. Artificially long features and limbs wrapped and coiled around the subjects at times deeming the figure almost borderless.
Working now with oil on canvas, Ruznic’s latest pictures verge on total abstraction, yet upon inspection, figures emerge, seemingly wandering through unnamed landscapes. Ruznic describes the process of composing each image as conjuring a memory and the redeeming of essential details as she paints with “the drunken hand”, an intuitive impluse that knows something the artist may not. This looseness of intention allows Ruznic to start with the lightest of stains on canvas or the manipulation of small fabric scraps until a face feels familiar. Applying thin layers of oil pigment onto the canvas with soft bristled make-up brushes allows Ruznic to leave the weave of the canvas exposed, displaying its organic nature and allowing for a sense of breath from the substrate.
As Ruznic’s figures emerge, they are perhaps asking the viewer to be held, to be helped. An empathy which can bridge the gap between the polarity and extremes of today’s political turmoil. Ruznic states, “Painting and stitching allow me to sift through my ideas about who they might have been. I make them up as I go, wiping and staining the surface of the canvas until a face feels familiar. The scraps of fabric make up entire little individuals who dance to help me remember.”
