Ruby Swana
Amis artist. For twelve years, she has thrived in Ximending, Taipei, since the age of eighteen. Relying on her keen sense of aesthetics, also using primitive and natural materials as design elements, she became a well-known window display designer in the department store industry. In 2002, Ruby and more than a dozen eastern indigenous artists engaged in a dialogue creation with driftwood at Jinzun Beach in Taitung County through a zero-setting life attitude. She later became the life and soul of the “conscious tribe.” Ruby is good at using driftwood. She uploads respect for natural creations and follows the original form of the driftwood, embedding her inner rainbow into it one at a time. For her, the use of driftwood and glass shards not only helps shape the outline of her work but also arouses self-identity to a certain extent. “A cosmopolitan.” “A woman full of imagination of the world.” “Glory after the baptism of profound experiences and returning to innocence.”
Glass fragments, another material full of romantic imagination, picked from the seashore, which sharp edges have been abraded into smooth and delicate shapes are also her favorite elements. Therefore, the creation process is not only for the final artwork but also a task of self-interpretation and self-shaping her own life. Life is a venue for art exhibitions. Artwork is the presentation of a creator’s life experience. “Exhibition of artwork or creation requires an audience to express image; aesthetics in life isn’t necessarily a conversation to a certain person.” To her, creation is life, and life is also creation. Living a life with aesthetics is another form of art.
