"I first saw Stalker in the mid-1980s. I grew up in a very rural community, but I had a group of friends who all wanted something that we couldn't really get where we lived. With film, that was a possibility. I'm in my fifties now. I keep trying to figure out what I'm doing as an artist and how to keep going."
"We are in this strange zone. The work in [my new show] Atropa is about growing things in what some might see as an uninhabitable location, and trying to make something spiritual - or if not spiritual, at least sincere - out of this debris and remnants of oppression. I started growing a garden in the studio. Over the past couple of seasons, it's gotten really big."
Sterling Ruby has worked across sculpture, ceramics, textile, painting and video since the mid-2000s to examine chaotic contemporary existence. A sprawling studio near downtown Los Angeles in Vernon functions as both workplace and an expanding garden that mingles urban, rural, industrial and natural elements. The exhibition Atropa at Sprüth Magers in New York presents works about growing and persisting in violent yet life-giving conditions, seeking spirituality or sincerity amid debris and remnants of oppression. Graphite drawings depict flora in states of bloom and decay. Expressive watercolour collages and media-spanning objects further explore countercultural aesthetics and the studio as a site of creative faith.
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