From "The Future of the Past" Series
![Ruth Rosner, TO VOTE [As if It Could Save a Life] #1, Mixed-media sculpture, 56” x 56” x 15"](https://i0.wp.com/violencetransformed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.18.20_Lesley-U_Ruth-Rosner_TO-VOTE-As-if-It-Could-Save-a-Life-1.jpg)
"The totemic women I sculpt
evolve from remnants, shards, debris, discarded objects,
evocative relics of the street.
The source of their vulnerability
is the source of their strength and power.
I scour streets and trolley tracks
Seacoasts and woods for rusted metal, wood, stones,
arresting rubble.
I gather rocks shattered and chiseled,
roots and branches ripped from trees,
stones and wood worn down by the sea.
Beginning with the face,
I work intuitively,
excavating from the inside out.
I incorporate found materials into the figures
as I construct forms
with wire, plaster, and clay, some from volcanic ash.
These are women of all races, ages, rising out of
Bare bones construction materials, materials from the ground,
objects rusted or worn.
Empowered by the yoking together of scraps and shards
from industry and the earth,
these figures, alone or in concert,
speak, sing, shout.
They stand as guardians, oracles, voices
for the voiceless
and unheard."
~ Ruth Rosner
Image Gallery
![Ruth Rosner, TO VOTE [As if It Could Save a Life] #1, Mixed-media sculpture, 56” x 56” x 15"](https://i0.wp.com/violencetransformed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.18.20_Lesley-U_Ruth-Rosner_TO-VOTE-As-if-It-Could-Save-a-Life-1.jpg?ssl=1)
![Ruth Rosner, TO VOTE [As if It Could Save a Life] #1 (detail), Mixed-media sculpture](https://i0.wp.com/violencetransformed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.18.20_Lesley-U_Ruth-Rosner_TO-VOTE-As-if-It-Could-Save-a-Life-1-detail-b.jpg?ssl=1)
![Ruth Rosner, TO VOTE [As if It Could Save A Life] #1 (detail), Mixed-media sculpture](https://i0.wp.com/violencetransformed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.18.20_Lesley-U_Ruth-Rosner_TO-VOTE-As-if-It-Could-Save-A-Life-1-detail-a.jpg?ssl=1)
Artist Bio
Ruth Rosner is haunted by the incantatory imagery of the lost, the broken down, the discarded, and the heroic transformations they undergo through the transformative power of art.
Clay, plaster and wire have taken shape for Rosner immediately and passionately, as from some collective unconscious. Whatever stuff she picks up--rusted metal, rocks, wood, objects discarded and weathered--are embedded (often as relics) in a series of totemic female figures.
She has exhibited her sculpture in galleries, universities, colleges, private art and historical venues, arts organizations, and libraries throughout New England, in NYC and in projection in Venice, Italy.
Her work has centered on the power of the woman's voice from her first juried piece, the installation PHALANX OF THE LONG-NECKED WOMEN, juried by Joseph E. Campbell, Director of Mass MoCA to OUT OF RUBBLE: Women's Voices and the Transformational Power of the Found Object, to a solo show at Fitchburg State University, to the group show, THE FEMALE FORM: GO FIGURE including selections from her installation, BEARING WITNESS, exhibited by the Brodigan Gallery, Groton School to sculptures, hanging pieces, and photographs (many from the same series) in a solo show at the Boston Public Library, Faneuil Branch in 2019.
Her concern with the refugee, the loss of and search for home, was also reflected in her early work with children through a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for art and text-based murals by elementary school students and by seventh and eighth grade students from Iran, Russia, China in the ESL program. JOURNEYS: We All Came from Somewhere.
Awards include Outstanding work in 3D (CAA: juror, Steven Zevitas, Eight Voices Elevated); the Castonguay-Appelbaum Award [Harlem School of the Arts: HSA along with the National Association of Women Artists, Inc., CONJURING HOME [Transported By What She Had Brought/By What She Had Left Behind]; Juror's Choices/3 (Boston Biennial Project); Juror's Choice: Mosesian Center for the Arts: juror, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, WHAT SHE CARRIED [ON THE JOURNEY], Refugee Women Series.
Some of the Venues: Artspace, Maynard.....AtlanticWorks Gallery.....Boston Biennial Project (Venice).....Boston City Hall..... Boston Public Library, Faneuil.....Brodigan Gallery (The Groton School).....Cambridge Art Association (CAA).....Cambridge College.....Copley Place.....Eustis House.....Fitchburg State University.....Galatea Fine Arts.....Governor Langdon House.....Harlem School for the Arts.....Harriet Tubman House.....JPOS PROJECTIONS.....Marran Gallery [Lesley University.....Massachusetts State House.....Menino Art Center (MAC).....Mobius.....MPG Contemporary.....Mosesian Art Association.....Old Shwamb Mill.....Roxbury Community College.....St. Botolph Club.....State Transportation Building.....Uforge Gallery.....Wheaton College
Featured articles: MEET RUTH ROSNER OF RUTH ROSNER/SCULPTURE Totemic Female Figures Watertown 7/17/18.....GIVING FEMALE REFUGEES A VOICE, by Kerry Feltner. WATERTOWN TAB, 4/13/2018.....Featured Artist in NESA ARTISTS AND THE STORIES THEY TELL, by Marilyn Ewer. ARTBEAT MAGAZINE, vol 2.....LOST AND FOUND: Making Art from Weathered Things, by Laura Lovett/Photos by Kate Flock. BROOKLINE TAB. 6/30/16..... ARTSCOPE: Featured Artist by James Foritano. September/October 2014 issue.