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Maria Ruggiano SOLO EXHIBITIONS Paula Barr Chelsea, “Familiar Tempo”, Solo Exhibition, New York, NY September 2005 GROUP EXHIBITIONS Evoke Gallery, Gallery Opening Show, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Dec. 2005 PUBLICATIONS/AWARDS 1997 College Photography Annual, “Finalist” EDUCATION A.A.S., Advertising Design, Fashion Institute of Technology 1999 CONTINUING EDUCATION Arts Administration Certificate Program, Present ARTIST’S STATEMENT A photography class began my creative awakening and established my first artist’s tool. Becoming an artist gave me a sense of purpose and granted me independence from society. My work unveils an inner peace and spiritual significance within myself. The use of imagery, colors and arrangement creates a feeling of harmony. After choosing what I thought to be a safe career as a graphic designer, I found myself returning to my passion for photography. Through my study of design, I learned to create a visual language using forms and grids. Yet this left me feeling confined and rigid, with design being formulaic, recycled and stale. The intuitive need for innovation pushed me back to working as an artist. Being an artist and breaking the grid was my emancipation from design, encouraging a refined freedom and enlightenment. My focus is on the use of original photographs and self-discovered techniques, rather than on computer manipulation. Each piece incorporates an array of methods from Xerox image transfers, stamping and imprinting, reworking surfaces with various mediums and a touch of mixed materials from my personal collection. Admiration for printmaking and photography has extended my boundaries in technique and materials. In all of my work, I use similar techniques, rules and innovations. While some may emerge from anxieties, feelings of isolation and the need for or question of freedom in our society, all are created with drive for independence and aesthetic insight. My artwork allows for independent thoughts, feelings and emotions, while influencing the sentiment at the time of construction. Through continuing education courses and artist workshops at several prestigious art institutes, I have continued my growth as an artist both creatively and academically. Accomplishment as an artist to me is being able to make the viewer experience similar feelings the artist felt at the time of creation. Currently, my focus has been on a body of work titled the White Series, which began in 2004 and was greatly influenced by the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy. Haunted by the memory of September 11th and its color-coded legacy of danger, I was left feeling small and fragile in this massive city we call New York. With my focus on this angst, along with the scrutiny and reality of being a woman the White Series emerged. My passion to challenge the unconstructive opinion of, “women being overemotional” was also the catalyst for this work. Channeling a woman’s feelings, anxieties, restraints and limitations created an outburst of power and grace. It’s then I realized through the use of courageous contrast, and positive and negative space, I was relating who I was and how I felt within myself to another environment. Through the use of image transfer, application of texture and paint to the paper, I was passing on my conscious and subconscious memories, to an environment that made me feel powerful, relentless, and unafraid, all with the grace of a woman’s touch. My mission for this still ongoing series is to employ my art, while creating a place in this world where every woman can feel the full glory and brilliance they deserve. I push the envelope on what the expectations of emotions are, as well as where women are emotionally and socially today. |
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