Lisa Ruyter
29 Jan - 10 Mar 2005
A Lady Mislaid
Arndt & Partner, Berlin, feature their second solo exhibition with Lisa Ruyter. Exhibited will be a thematic series of large scale, figurative paintings that explore the exalted world of Haute Couture. Brightly coloured, contrasting planes of acrylic paint interlock into precise compositions, depicting stylized fashion shows, shopping windows or interior views of luxury boutiques.
Comparable to the tradition of op Art Lisa Ruyter sees the world through the photographic lens. For her scenes she employs her own snapshots. Especially the perspective and the harsh cropping characteristic of photographs inspire her compositions. While the outlined, superflat shapes and nes trace the figurative motifs like paper silhouettes, the colours pursue their very own logic. Her pallet is irritatingly synthetic and resists any naturalistic reading. As Lisa Ruyter avoids any endering of shade as well as peculiarly reverses dark and light her paintings achieve an unmistakeable, arresting quality reminiscent of photographic negatives or over-saturated digital colours.
Unlike her earlier paintings, which are often compared to film stills, her works presented at Arndt & Partner seem filtered through mass media,less due to their filmic or photographic gaze than due to their extremely staged motifs. Commenting on the celebration of urfaces, the artist reduces her protagonists to their glamorous poses and accessories. Like pieces of a puzzle the titivated, anonymous figures fit into the opulently decorated sceneries of the cat walks and fashion boutiques. Lisa Ruyter’s intense paintings reflect the trend-machine’s continuous recycling of styles, that absorbs any stylistic tendency from Art Nouveau to Hip Hop.
Lisa Ruyter, born in 1968 in Washington D.C., studied at MCPS Art Center in Maryland, as well as at the School of Visual Arts and the Hunter College, New York. She lives and works in New York and Vienna, Austria, where she also opened a gallery in September 2003. She participated in numerous group exhibitions, e.g. at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt /Main, Germany, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, as well as at the New Yorker institutions: the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the P.S.1. She presented solo exhibitions in renowned international galleries, such as Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Georg Kargl, Vienna, Art & Public, Geneva, Switzerland, or Leo Koenig Inc., New York.
Arndt & Partner, Berlin, feature their second solo exhibition with Lisa Ruyter. Exhibited will be a thematic series of large scale, figurative paintings that explore the exalted world of Haute Couture. Brightly coloured, contrasting planes of acrylic paint interlock into precise compositions, depicting stylized fashion shows, shopping windows or interior views of luxury boutiques.
Comparable to the tradition of op Art Lisa Ruyter sees the world through the photographic lens. For her scenes she employs her own snapshots. Especially the perspective and the harsh cropping characteristic of photographs inspire her compositions. While the outlined, superflat shapes and nes trace the figurative motifs like paper silhouettes, the colours pursue their very own logic. Her pallet is irritatingly synthetic and resists any naturalistic reading. As Lisa Ruyter avoids any endering of shade as well as peculiarly reverses dark and light her paintings achieve an unmistakeable, arresting quality reminiscent of photographic negatives or over-saturated digital colours.
Unlike her earlier paintings, which are often compared to film stills, her works presented at Arndt & Partner seem filtered through mass media,less due to their filmic or photographic gaze than due to their extremely staged motifs. Commenting on the celebration of urfaces, the artist reduces her protagonists to their glamorous poses and accessories. Like pieces of a puzzle the titivated, anonymous figures fit into the opulently decorated sceneries of the cat walks and fashion boutiques. Lisa Ruyter’s intense paintings reflect the trend-machine’s continuous recycling of styles, that absorbs any stylistic tendency from Art Nouveau to Hip Hop.
Lisa Ruyter, born in 1968 in Washington D.C., studied at MCPS Art Center in Maryland, as well as at the School of Visual Arts and the Hunter College, New York. She lives and works in New York and Vienna, Austria, where she also opened a gallery in September 2003. She participated in numerous group exhibitions, e.g. at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt /Main, Germany, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, as well as at the New Yorker institutions: the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the P.S.1. She presented solo exhibitions in renowned international galleries, such as Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Georg Kargl, Vienna, Art & Public, Geneva, Switzerland, or Leo Koenig Inc., New York.