Brie Ruais makes ceramic sites based on the weight of bodies–her own or a combination of hers with another. On her hands and knees, hundreds of pounds of clay are laboriously spread out from a large mound and pushed to the clay’s limits. The results of this process are tiled, gestural ceramic wall reliefs that bear a relationship to action-painting, Gutai, AbEx, and Bruce Nauman’s repetitive actions.

For her 2013 exhibition at Halsey McKay Gallery, Ruais addressed formal and associative doubling. In Inside Folded Out, 132 lbs. (The artist’s body weight in clay spread out then folded open from the center), the center of the site is opened up and peeled back, creating an amorphous ring. In How One Can Be Two, 300 lbs. (Two people’s combined body weight in clay), a circular form is torn out from the middle and set aside, resulting in two pieces: a ring that used to be whole, and a circle that had once been part of something larger. These two parts constantly refer back to one another, confusing the sense of their autonomy as objects. Metaphorically, the works’ vain gestures of excavation reveal a center or origin that proves to be in constant evasion. The scale of the works with their muscular gestures in clay, make clear that they are the result of an artist’s action as it relates to terrain, architecture, the body, and the mapping of movement.

Brie Ruais makes ceramic sites based on the weight of bodies–her own or a combination of hers with another. On her hands and knees, hundreds of pounds of clay are laboriously spread out from a large mound and pushed to the clay’s limits. The results of this process are tiled, gestural ceramic wall reliefs that bear a relationship to action-painting, Gutai, AbEx, and Bruce Nauman’s repetitive actions.

For her 2013 exhibition at Halsey McKay Gallery, Ruais addressed formal and associative doubling. In Inside Folded Out, 132 lbs. (The artist’s body weight in clay spread out then folded open from the center), the center of the site is opened up and peeled back, creating an amorphous ring. In How One Can Be Two, 300 lbs. (Two people’s combined body weight in clay), a circular form is torn out from the middle and set aside, resulting in two pieces: a ring that used to be whole, and a circle that had once been part of something larger. These two parts constantly refer back to one another, confusing the sense of their autonomy as objects. Metaphorically, the works’ vain gestures of excavation reveal a center or origin that proves to be in constant evasion. The scale of the works with their muscular gestures in clay, make clear that they are the result of an artist’s action as it relates to terrain, architecture, the body, and the mapping of movement.

Brie Ruais was born in Southern California and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from New York University, and her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Katzen Center at American University, Washington, DC; Arsenal, Montreal; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Solo exhibitions include Nicole Klagsbrun, NY; Halsey McKay Gallery, Easthampton, NY; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Mesler/Feuer, NY; Lefebrve & Fils, Paris. Group exhibitions include Maccarone, Sperone Westwater and Rachel Uffner in NY; Night Gallery and Marc Selwyn Fine Arts in Los Angeles, Romer Young gallery in San Francisco, September gallery in Hudson, and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels among others. Ruais is the recipient of the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program, the Dieu Donne Fellowship, Montello Foundation Residency, Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship, The Shandaken Project Residency among others. Her work is featured in Vitamin C: New Perspectives in Contemporary Art, Clay and Ceramics, by Phaidon (Fall 2017).

Courtesy of Halsey McKay Gallery and the Artist