Sterling Ruby - Widw

Sterling Ruby's WIDW ('window') series is an evolving body of work that reflects the artist's intense relationship with materials and his interest in issues such as sociocultural evolution, popular culture, and violence. Executed in acrylic, oil paint, and collaged fragments of cardboard and textile on canvas, the paintings closely relate to the DRFTRS works on paper. In much the same way that he mines his visual archive, Ruby sifts through the accumulated detritus of his studio, combining these memory-laden materials with thickly painted layers. The applied graphic elements that bisect the paintings link to recurrent themes in his work: horizons, grids, flags, prison bars, and windows.