exhibitions

RUBY OSORIO

"Upon this Waking Edge..."

7. 9. 2007 - 27. 10. 2007

vamiali’s gallery is pleased to present the first solo show in Athens of American artist Ruby Osorio titled “Upon This Waking Edge…”. Ruby Osorio was born in Los Angeles where she lives and works.

The work of Ruby Osorio addresses issues of identity, transformation and the creative boundaries between the fictional and the mundane. In the past, Osorio has mined inspiration from a wide range of literary and cultural references, creating detailed drawings/paintings where the fantastic plays a central role. Viewed individually, the drawings bely a logical narrative. However as a series of works, Osorio’s drawings purposely abstract the narrative structure to expose reoccurring themes of yearning, desire, transcendance, amid absurd scenarios where the ambiguity of meaning implies elusiveness and constant change. Utilizing the female heroine as a central character, Osorio subtly deconstructs the conventional or traditional attributes projected onto women by positioning them in a parallel universe where no rules apply and everything is at the disposal of their own creation.

In this latest series of drawings, with the title “Upon This Waking Edge…”, that will be presented at vamiali’s gallery, Osorio has further mined the references of art history focusing specifically on the surrealist movement of the 1920’s- a movement which surfaced as a critique of its times and as a response to the overrationalization of a bourgeois society. Contextualizing her works in hindsight of this art movement, Osorio reasserts the value of extracting meaning from one’s own unconscious life. Moreover, the reinterpration of certain surrealist works in Osorio’s oveure redress the role of the woman artist in contemporary society. Where surrealist thought was dominated by the likes of male artists such as Dali, Duchamp, and Breton, Osorio’s revival of the surreal in her drawings attest to the enduring power of sly subversion in questioning who has the authority to create meaning and how meaning is disseminated in a larger discourse; in this case the art world.

Ruby Osorio has participated in many exhibitions including “Extreme Unction”, Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, (solo), “Story of a Girl (Who Awakes Far, Far Away)”, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, (solo), “Domestic Departures”, CSU Fullerton Art Gallery, Fullerton, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City,
”The Living Room”, Randall Scott Gallery, Washington.