Ruth Borgenicht: Articulated Spaces

September 30, 2006 - January 14, 2007 Free Admission

Ruth Borgenicht lives and works just outside New York City in New Jersey. She studied mathematics at Rutgers University and only became exposed to ceramics in her final year of study. Evidence of her grounding in mathematics remains apparent throughout her work. Ruth’s artworks are composed of dozens, at times even hundreds of components that retain their individual integrity while at the same time are woven together to compose a larger whole. She is inspired by chain mail armor used for protection during battle; however she has chosen to work with high fired ceramics, one of the most brittle and fragile of materials. Her creative concept often begins with simple geometric forms such as a square, rectangle, cylinder or triangle, but the resulting sculpture is abstracted by the mobility of the interlocked rings that settle into a slightly different shape each time they are relocated.

Ruth’s love of experimentation, altering of variables under controlled circumstances, fascination with undetermined results, challenging of preconceptions and constant curiosity are all attributes common to both the scientific and artistic processes. How puzzling that we have so long assumed these two worlds were diametrically opposed. This unusual artist whose works play with so many supposed contradictions has fused them into a new and fresh perception with a simplicity that belies the complexity of thought behind it.

–from the exhibition catalog essay by Jimmy Clark, “Articulated Spaces”