Ruby Sky Stiler
Quilted Figure
The depiction of the female figure in Quilted Figure by Ruby Sky Stiler remains an economic, canny composition of geometric abstractions in a Modernist spirit. Yet rather than provide us with the layers of information found in her wall reliefs, the sculptures exclusively frame space. In place of the tactile surfaces that can be carved into and drawn on, the sculptures’ outlines provide multiple perspectives on to their surroundings, and additionally unto themselves. The lines are simultaneously descriptive and obstructive, creating screens that allow transparency only to reveal another set of images. Stiler portrays the female figure and our relationship to it as anything but; fully realized yet hard to decipher, enigmatic, and unrepeatable.
Ruby Sky Stiler has established a visual language in which historical periods, art movements, and spatial dimensions readily coexist. Her signature wall reliefs transform an inventory of studio castoffs into rhythmic puzzles that draw attention equally to their surfaces and to the discrete shapes contained within, accumulating patterns and textures to create dense portraits or geometric configurations. Each component carries its own history, oftentimes visible in notes scrawled in pencil, or of outline marks only to be rethought; what fills the space in between each cut creates another narrative, another plane.