MMFA is pleased to announce the arrival of new work by Kim Rugg from her Postal Series of works from 2010-2012. These pieces – each done on a standard envelope – feature postage stamps that were cut by hand into tiny pieces and then “re-ordered” by the artist and then mailed to the gallery using those stamps for postage and a removable label for the address.
Kim Rugg
American Landscape II, 2011 reconfigured postage stamp and envelope; 8 x 12.5 in
With surgical blades and a meticulous hand, Kim Rugg (b. 1963, Canada) dissects and reassembles newspapers, stamps, comic books, cereal boxes and postage stamps in order to render them conventionally illegible. The front page of the LA Times becomes neatly alphabetized jargon, debunking the illusion of its producers’ authority as much as the message itself. Through her re-appropriation of medium and meaning, she effectively highlights the innately slanted nature of the distribution of information as well as its messengers. Rugg has also created hand-drawn works alongside wallpaper installations, both of which toy with authenticity and falsehood through subtle trompe l’oeil. In her maps, Rugg re-envisions the topography of various states, countries, continents, and even the world without borders, featuring a staggeringly precise hand-drawn layout with only city names and regions as reference points. In own sense of abstracted cartography, Rugg redistributes traditional map colors (or eliminates them entirely) in order to nullify the social preeminence given to constructed territories, and highlight the idea that our attention is manipulated to focus on the powerful few instead of the physical many.
Kim Rugg and the Postal Series works will also be featured in the upcoming exhibition titled, PROCESS, curated by Matthew Gardocki at the Barrick Museum at the University of Nevada Las Vegas which opens to the public on January 20 and continues through May 13, 2017. The Opening Reception is on January 27, 2017 (from 5-8pm). This exhibition will also include works by: Julie Oppermann; Christopher Duncan; John Bauer; Lester Monzon; Kim Rugg; Kara Joslyn; Heidi Schwegler; Meghan Smythe; Christopher Russell, along with Ryan Wallace. Each of the artist’s process of creation is brought to the forefront in the exhibition. While some of the work seems very immediate visually the artists process is actually quite extensive in getting to the final image. Highlighted are the artist’s use of materials including the sun and time to create abstractions while others use computers and man made materials.
For more information on this work please contact: mark@markmoorefineart.com
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