This workshop is currently sold out. To join the waitlist, please email education@folkartmuseum.org.
Artist Ruby Sky Stiler transforms familiar materials into sculptures and collages that engage with the iconic female form in a number of art-historical contexts, reevaluating ideas of authority, canon and beauty. In her panels, she uses acrylic paint, acrylic resin, paper, glue, and graphite to compose mosaic-like figures against geometrical decorative backgrounds. These two-dimensional stylized portraits blur the frontiers between decorative and fine arts, figuration and abstraction, and recall Morris Hirshfield’s ornamental sensibility in his portraits, his ingenious use of saturated colors and dense patterning.
“Experimentation with materials is a huge part of my creative process”, stated Stiler who is “always inventing new ways of working, refining, and altering [her] practice.” Join the artist for a hands-on presentation and workshop inspired by the painted figures on view in the gallery. Learn how to experiment with paper, glue and geometric drawing tools and create unusual intricate portraits.
Materials will be provided, however participants are encouraged to bring additional paper from home, to have a greater variety to work with.
Space is limited; advance registration and masks are required. Please click here to register. All visitors 12 and older must show proof of vaccination and a valid I.D. For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.
The Dialogue + Studio Workshop series offers participants opportunities to gain insight into and engage with self-taught art, past and present, at a deep level. Focused discussions about select themes, techniques, and materials featured in current exhibitions are paired with related expert-led hands-on workshops.
Ruby Sky Stiler has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Fairfield University Art Museum, Fairfield, CT; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Saint-Gaudens Memorial Park, Cornish, NH; The Suburban, Oak Park, IL; and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR. She has been included in group exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; The Berman Museum, PA; The Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, NY; Providence College Galleries, Providence, RI, among others. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from Yale University. Stiler lives and works in Brooklyn. Work by Stiler can be found in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; RISD Museum, RI; Fairfield University Art Museum, CT; and the Tang Teaching Museum, NY.
Images:
Left: Morris Hirshfield, Stage Beauties, 1944, Oil on canvas, 40 x 48 in, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Carroll and Donna Janis, 2013.1118. © 2022 Robert and Gail Rentzer for Estate of Morris Hirshfield / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Right: Ruby Sky Stiler, Self-Portrait with Ochre Palette, 2021, acrylic paint, acrylic resin, paper, glue, and graphite on panel, 50 x 44 inches. Courtesy of the Artist.