Brooklyn-based artist Ruby Sky Stiler’s practice hinges upon a compression of cultural referents, an espousal of both high and low, and an incorporation of the monumental and the cast off. Her sculptural process is informed by an extensive investigation of authority, value, and taste, weaving together imagery from the realms of architecture, craft, design, and art history, such as Hellenic bas-relief, Le Corbusier’s concrete buildings, Picasso’s sgraffito ceramics, Native American pottery, Matisse’s cut-outs, Louise Nevelson’s monochromatic assemblages, and municipal sculpture.

In earlier bodies of work, Stiler’s sculptures took the form of vessels, reliefs, and female nudes, and employed foam core and acrylic resin. The works had the appearance of stone, marble, and ceramic, magnified by their iconography, which borrowed from ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art and architecture, as well as indigenous New Mexico pottery traditions, yet up close, revealed a hand-built technique. Stiler’s hydrocal plaster wall reliefs (2013–ongoing) evolved from an initial experimentation with a familiar art material into a more profound inquiry into the history of classical plaster casts and the rise and fall of their value and meaning over time. By utilizing discarded compositional elements and fragments found in her studio, Stiler conjured a spectral reference to objects no longer present.

Ruby Sky Stiler has had solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT and Locust Projects, Miami, FL. Additionally she has exhibited at The Suburban, Oak Park, IL, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York, The Berman Museum, PA, and The Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, New York, among many other venues.

Courtesy of Art + Culture Projects