Interview by Jennifer Remenchik
Artist Brie Ruais’ ceramic sculptures, videos, performances and installations begin in her body — in the intuitive way she feels her way through the work using clay as an index for performance. Her work has a connection to historical movements such as land art and feminist art practices, as well as a relationship to the performance-based work of artists such as Janine Antoni, Lynda Benglis, Ana Mendieta and Bruce Nauman.
Ruais now spends her time making artwork and connecting with the land in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she recently moved after a long stint in Brooklyn, New York. Here we discuss her recent exhibition Daughter, You Seem Foreign To Me at Night Gallery in Los Angeles, as well as her relationship to her mother, the technical process of her practice, and her relationship to the ever-changing moon.
Remenchik: There seems to be a fascination with the body, and embodiment, throughout your practice. Can you describe your relationship to the body and how it manifests in your work?
Ruais: For me, embodiment is the simultaneous experience of being in a body (one’s inner world of thoughts, emotions, perceptions) and having a body (ie: experiencing your body as an object that is in relation to the world); It is in my work that these two experiences — internal and external — come together and are able to be expressed and explored while I’m making my work. The performance I developed to get these two realities in sync is the performance “spreading out from center”. In this performance I start with a mound of clay and push it outward, to my arms reach, while I continue rotating and pushing, always keeping my body in the center. I move from the “inside” to the “outside”; the edge of the work becomes a liminal space that energetically continues to reach out into the space that is shared with the viewer. It has now become the foundation of my work and is the site where grounding into the self and being in relation to others/the world both occurs.
Remenchik: There also seems to be an exploration of different subjects tangential to the body, such as athleticism, survival, even sensuality. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Ruais: I feel like you just named three things that women experience differently from men, and only in the past couple decades have gained value and recognition for women in mainstream culture. Those three things are forms of agency cultivated in the body. I explore my personal relationships to them through the work — the clay terrains are sites where I feel both my strength and my vulnerability, my right to take up space, and the sensuality of engaging in movement that is meaningful to me.
Remenchik: The glazes you use are very beautiful, and the pieces are cut and placed in a very particular way. Can you talk a little bit about the technical part of your process? The practical way the pieces come together?
Ruais: I make the pieces on the ground out of 130 pounds of clay which is my bodyweight. I made the “Moon Phase” pieces, for example, at night so I could step outside to look at the moon. After making the work on the floor, I used a knife to separate the edge of visibility and darkness of the moon. Then using my hands I tore up the rest of the work into sections that radiate out from the center. I try to keep each stage of the process close to the gesture: I haphazardly apply the glazes quickly and sometimes in strange combinations. Iridescent and crystalline glazes for the white moon — the piece had to reflect light like the moon does — and the dark side of the moon is sparkling and glowing with strange blues and purples. I also use found materials like copper wire and glass from bottles to keep the process loose and uncontrolled.
Remenchik: Your practice is intrinsically tied to the earth through its materials and subject matter. How much do you think about current conversations surrounding human practices and interventions on the Earth, such as mining, deforestation, sustainability, etc?
Ruais: I think of extraction practices as not bad or good but just out of balance. Visiting an open-pit gold mine was helpful for me. I felt like I was watching someone I love have open heart surgery, and it made me wonder what caretaking for the earth could really look like. I don’t have any answers, but personally I’ve found a lot of joy just finding my own weird ways to cultivate my relationship with the earth; I’m obsessed with collecting native seeds and making seed clay balls to diversify the overgrazed land in my area. I like to check out and camp off-grid for a couple weeks a year! Loving something/someone can make a difference.
Remenchik: In using your own body in the work so tangibly, both through the physicality of your process and the gesture of using your bodyweight for each piece, you imbue the artworks with so much of yourself. How do you view the relationship between yourself, the work and the viewer in terms of intimacy?
Ruais: When art is personal, that’s what makes it relatable. It always comes from the artist’s lived experience and some artists are comfortable talking about that and some aren’t. I want people to feel that they are having an intimate experience with my work — not necessarily with me! There is a third thing created by the relationship between the artwork and the viewer, and I feel lucky to be part of that equation.
Remenchik: The moon has so many associations tied to it, scientifically and culturally, such as the movement of the tides and The Divine Feminine, can you talk about what it means to you in the context of this exhibition?
Ruais: Yes, absolutely. The moon has a powerful presence: it moves bodies of water (including ours), and it’s something everyone on this planet has in common. Friends have told me that it’s a comfort to them, others have told me it keeps them connected to the passage of time. I projected my mother into that moon, as if she’s witnessing and watching over me when I’m feeling lonely or when I am nervous about making a big change. In the show, the “Moon” pieces point to time as cyclical, and conjure the expansiveness of cosmic time and the intimacy of human time.
Remenchik: “Daughter, You Seem Foreign to Me” is such a specific and personal feeling title. How did you arrive at it?
Ruais: It’s something my mom, who has advanced dementia, said to me recently. I thought it was the most poetic thing she’s ever said. It signaled to me that while she cannot articulate how she’s feeling or what she wants for dinner, she knows that she has changed so much that she has gone from being very familiar with me to being like a stranger. I think about her like the moon: so far away and yet so close.
Brie Ruais’s exhibition Daughter, You Seem Foreign to Me is on view at Night Gallery through June 24, 2023. 2050 Imperial Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021.
Artwork images courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Photos: Nik Massey, Paul Salveson. Installation images: Marten Elder.
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