New Weavings

May 6 - June 19, 2021 | Project Space

Ruby Sky Stiler

Press Release

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to present New Weavings, a project space exhibition by Ruby Sky Stiler.

Employing books as both reference and material, Stiler has long used existing texts and pictures to weave together a spectrum of disparate sources. For these new book page weavings, Stiler first excises pages from various art & design, history, or “how-to” volumes that line her studio, among them Giovani Becatti’s The Art of Ancient Greece and Rome (1967); Bargello: A Golden Hands Pattern Book (1973); and Carolyn Hall’s The Thirties in Vogue (1985).

After applying paint on or around the page’s content, she intricately cuts what will become the warps and wefts of the final composition. Stiler then weaves two pages together, producing an entirely new image that creates glitches and glimpses of what was before. The undulating, zigzagging, horizontal and vertical strips work in tandem to both conceal and reveal an underlying geometry.

Anchoring the weavings in the center of the room is a functional sculpture featuring a reclining nude figure constructed out of stained Baltic birch. Taking the form of a bench, Blue Bather (2020) was made for Stiler’s recent museum exhibition, Group Relief, at the Fairfield University Art Museum in Connecticut. Curated by Ian Berry, an expanded iteration of the exhibition will open at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in Saratoga Springs, NY during Winter 2022.