For the 2017 edition of UNTITLED Miami Beach, Albertz Benda is pleased to present a site-specific installation by Thomas Fougeirol and Brie Ruais.
Fougeirol reimagines act of painting by removing the presence of the artist’s hand, instead influencing the composition on the canvas through the intermediary of imprints – craters left by raindrops, fabric, dust and debris on meticulously primed surfaces. For UNTITLED, Fougeirol has created a new series of ‘Gold paintings’ that will be exhibited for the first time in the United States.
Ruais is also concerned with the imprints of actions on material; the works are the outcome of an intersection between performance, sculpture, and painting. While Fougeirol emphasizes the absence of the artist’s direct touch, Ruais does just the opposite; the pieces bear impressions of her toes, fingers, and limbs. Merging the movements and weight of her body with hunks of clay, Brie Ruais stomps, kicks, stretches, wedges, rakes, and pulls this earthy material into abstract, organic forms that serve as records of her actions. With heavily worked surfaces finished with richly colored glazes, her pieces recall landscapes, abstract paintings, and the contours of the body itself.
Brie Ruais’s work is presented in collaboration with Nicole Klagsbrun, New York.
About the artists:
Thomas Fougeirol [French, b. 1985] currently lives and works in Paris, FR and Brooklyn, New York. He holds a DNSEP from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and is the recipient of the 1998 Coprim Foundation Award. Acquisitions have been made by Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, FR; Musée Estrine, Saint Remy de Provence, FR; Fondation Louis Vuitton pour l’art contemporain, FR; FNAC, Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, FR; Fondation Antonio Perez, Cuenca, ES; Collection Chanel and FRAC Haute Normandie, Rouen, FR, and The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL.
Brie Ruais [American, b. 1982] lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts in 2011. Recent exhibitions include Where You No Longer Are, There is Your Desert (solo), Thomas Hunter Project Space, Hunter College, NY, NY (2016); EAF14: 2014 Emerging Artist Fellowship exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; and AIRspace Artists in Residence Show, Abrons Art Center/Henry Street Settlement, New York, NY (2011). Awards and residences include the Dieu Donne Papermaking Residency (2016), the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship (2014), the Abrons Art Center & Henry Street Settlement, AIRspace Residency (2011), and the Vermont Studio Center, Sculpture Fellowship (2008), among others.
