Ruth Proctor
Performance
Raising Dust, 2017, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Raising Dust, 2017, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Raising Dust, 2017, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Proctor’s actions and performances are often fragile, a momentary push or trigger, as if staging a dare. We find common elements drifting through her work: wind, water, smoke, light; all are used as intangible, moving, quickly dispersed actors in temporarily staged instances.
— Chris Fite-Wassilak
If the Sky Falls, Smoke Walk, Nida Art Colony, Lithuania 2017
If The Sky Falls, 2017
If The Sky Falls, 2017
If the Sky Falls, 2017, performance first made for the Whitechapel Gallery, is a walk by the artist that is specific to each location where the performance is held. Leading from one place to another, a trail of smoke is left behind as if drawing within space. The work is a marking of time and place that is both physical and inmaterial, social and spatial, attempting to highlight an always shifting present that cannot be held down, finally existing only in the memory of those who experience it.
If The Sky Falls, 2017, Museo Nacional de Arte MUNAL, Mexico City
If The Sky Falls, 2017, Museo Nacional de Arte MUNAL, Mexico City
If The Sky Falls, 2018 Seydisfjordur, Iceland
If The Sky Falls, 2018 Seydisfjordur, Iceland
All My Failures Turning into a Hill, 2015, performance during STUDIO, Hollybush Gardens, London
All My Failures Turning into a Hill, 2015, performance during STUDIO, Hollybush Gardens, London
Film & Slide show
Syncro skating drawing (Team Torino), 2014, slide show
Syncro skating drawing (Team Torino), 2014, slide show
Syncro skating drawing (Team Torino), 2014, slide show
Syncro skating drawing (Team Torino), 2014, instructions
Super Ruda, 2010, slide show [still]
Drum Dance, 2010, 16 mm, B+W, silent film, hand tinted elements, 3’00” [loop]
Something Wonderful will Happen, 2014, Instructions for an Ordinary Utopia, Foreground Projects Frome, Somerset
Something Wonderful will Happen, 2014, Instructions for an Ordinary Utopia, Foreground Projects Frome, Somerset
Something Wonderful will Happen, 2014, Instructions for an Ordinary Utopia, Foreground Projects Frome, Somerset
Ok, Set, Drop, 2013, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Ok, Set, Drop, 2013, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Ok, Set, Drop, 2013, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Le Double, 2008, 2 x 16 mm film projection, 1’30” [loop]
Installation
Smoke Signals, 2015, silk scarves, shemagh, paper, table cloths, gold dust, stones, cards and found objects, 90.5 x 88.5 cm
Smoke Signals, 2015, silk scarves, shemagh, paper, table cloths, gold dust, stones, cards and found objects, 80 x 77 cm
Smoke Signals, 2015, silk scarves, shemagh, paper, table cloths, gold dust, stones, cards and found objects, 90.5 x 91 cm
Smoke Signals, 2015, silk scarves, shemagh, paper, table cloths, gold dust, stones, cards and found objects, 112.5 x 126 cm
Got My Eyes on You, 2014 – 2016, white emulsion, finger drawing on window, dimensions variable [detail]
Got My Eyes on You, 2014 – 2016, white emulsion, finger drawing on window, dimensions variable [detail]
Sculpture
Time Machine, 2015, claw machine, soft toys,
178 x 77 x 98.50 cm
Time Machine, 2015, claw machine, soft toys,
178 x 77 x 98.50 cm
Time Machine, 2015, claw machine, soft toys,
178 x 77 x 98.50 cm
Change of Edge (Moustache), 2007, mixed media
Contort Yourself, 2007, mixed media
Wall work
Working across a variety of media from performance to installation, Ruth Proctor‘s works often explore fleeting moments and the ephemeral, positioning her work and the audience between here and there, now and then.
35 x 26 x 2.50 cm [framed]
35 x 26 x 2.50 cm [framed]
Untitled 1 (Orange Experiment), 2016, flare residue caught on archival paper, 150 x 140 cm [detail]
Smoke Drawing, 2015, flare residue on archival paper, 29.7 x 21 cm [each archival paper]
30 x 24 cm
30 x 24 cm
Untitled, 2009, found manuscript, white pencil, pencil, pen, 34.40 x 26 cm [detail]
EXHIBITIONS at Hollybush Gardens
STUDIO
Sarah Jones [feat. Sanja Todorović], David Panos, Ruth Proctor and work-seth/tallentire
28 July – 1 August 2015
Reach Out and Touch Me
Helen Cammock, Ruth Proctor and Jay Tan
19 April – 19 May 2013
Texts
Hollybush Issue 3: Ruth Proctor
Essay by Chris Fite-Wassilak
Review: Ruth Proctor at Hollybush Gardens, London
Review by Alex Borkowski, thisistomorrow, 24 June 2015
Ruth Proctor: Love and Protection
Review by Sally Mumby-Croft, thisistomorrow, 19 October 2010
BIOGRAPHY
Ruth Proctor (b. 1980, UK) lives and works in London, UK. Traversing a variety of media, from sculpture to photography to performance, Proctor’s practice often explores ephemerality, place, time and artifice. Her performance works have been presented by the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017); Museo Nacional de Arte MUNAL, Mexico City (2017) and at the Along Lines Symposium – Nida Art Colony, Lithuania (2017). Significant exhibitions include As if Nothing Happened, Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin (2016); Putting It On, Hollybush Gardens, London (2015); Still Not Fixed, John Jones Project Space, London (2015); Risk, Turner Contemporary (2015); On Dynamics and Monuments, Kunstverein Nürnberg, (2015). She was commissioned by Cambridge University to create We Are All Under The Same Sky (2016), a permanent artwork currently installed at The University of Cambridge Primary School, UK.