KIM RUGG: “Another Man’s Treasure” – Opening July 9th
Mark Moore Fine Art is proud to announce the exclusive ARTSY online exhibition of new work by artist KIM RUGG on view now titled, “Another Man’s Treasure”. I would urge you to take a look at this beautiful, thoughtful, and compelling exhibition focused contemporary culture.
View this exclusive ARTSY online exhibition now at: https://bit.ly/2Va62Bz
With surgical blades and a meticulous hand for nearly two decades Kim Rugg (b. 1963, Canada) dissected and reassembled newspapers, stamps, comic books, cereal boxes and postage stamps in order to render them conventionally illegible. In her early work, 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.
According to the artist:
“Some people have said that my recent work has moved into a different direction. But I would disagree with this as I am still pursuing my interest in popular iconography and still disrupting the relationship between the images and their vehicles to make the images more visible and jarring.”
“Living in an urban environment it is impossible to ignore the blanket of litter that covers our streets and parks. Each piece of litter is a highly designed piece of packaging, easily identifiable, that is no longer functional or wanted.”
“During a period of a couple of years when I was not able to produce any art, collecting selected pieces of litter became my main creative process. Passersby would praise me as a civil minded citizen and offer to add to my collection only to be told by me that I didn’t want their bottle or can they were offering me as it didn’t fit in the of my piece.”
“I was drawn to cigarette packs, because of their gory, staged health warning images, brightly colored sweet (Candy) wrappers and of course Mc Donald’s packaging which outnumbered all other litter put together. Once home, I washed and dried all my collected rubbish (trash) and sorted it by color, brand or product. This became my new palette to produce the new series of collages.”
“I work in a space dominated by an antique Mennonite quilt which has inspired me to investigate the language of quilting. Needlework has been a long-term interest for me. The dialogue between the thread and the fabric is one that I am attracted to due to the physicality of the medium. Early pieces exploring the medium of stitching and quilting fused with contemporary iconography were conceptually unsuccessful but helped me understands the new vocabulary I was working with until I felt I could express my concept successfully. My process involves creating a collage with the collected litter. My aim is to create something visually attractive at first, to lure the viewer, and for the true nature of the medium to be revealed on closer inspection.”
“The Practice of Smoking” started as a single square where the health warning images were arranged to form an attractive color pattern, the content of diseased lungs or gangrenous toes, was just incidental. I was selecting them for their formal qualities rather than content. The collage was scanned and printed in multiples which I arranged to form a larger pattern which seen from a distance appears to be an ethnic textile.
After assembling the parts, it was backed with batting and stitched to form a quilt. Quilts are usually made for comfort, but my process has corrupted this function to make it anything but comforting.”
“As I mentioned earlier McDonald’s dominates the world of litter. In the series of works titled “I’m Lovin’ It” the pattern is of a MC Donald’s QR code and each square is cut from a piece of litter. Thanks to the color scheme of the branded packaging, the overall effect is quite fun. A version of the collage has been printed to make the two quilts.”
“The piece “Keep Britain Tidy” is a long-lasting strap line for a litter campaign in the UK. It appears repeatedly in the collage as the logo is printed on most wrapping. This collage used blue, red and white packaging arranged in a herringbone pattern to form the Union Jack. It was directly inspired by the thought: “this country is covered in litter” I had when walking the streets of my neighborhood with my dog. Although the sparkly bright nature of the packaging makes the collage bright and fun, the real meaning behind the materials is one of decrepitude.”
“Likewise, “Take Your Litter Home” Is another expression of this thought. The British Isles are made using a traditional quilting pattern to cut the litter into blocks. The sea is made from water bottle labels.”
Rugg received her MFA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (London). Her work can be seen in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (D.C.) and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation (CA), the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Honolulu Museum of Art, the Norton Museum (FL), and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (TX) among others. She has been included in exhibitions at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (CA), Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NY), Galerie Schmidt Maczollek (Cologne), and Nettie Horn Gallery (Manchester), P.P.O.W. Gallery (NYC), and was the recipient of the Thames and Hudson Prize from the Royal College of Art Society in 2004. She lives and works in London (UK).
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