The Difference Between Things

Solo exhibition at Floating Goose Studio, Feb 5-28, during the Adelaide Fringe Festival ‘21
Opening speech and Catalogue Essay by Adele Sliuzas

‘I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.’ - Henri Matisse

In this exhibition, Ruby Chew presents a new body of artwork, radically different from the Figurative Realist works she’s been crafting over the past 10 years. Employing multi-layered, intuitive, processed-based methods, Ruby wishes to provoke open dialogue between work and viewer, removed from the prescribed narratives and heavy historical weight of pure realism.

This conceptual shift is the beginning of a profound and exciting direction in Ruby’s practice. Within this show, she presents to you her pursuit of containing the difference between her major concerns. These include the ambiguous space between realism and abstraction and the difference between the picture plane and the object nature of painting.

There is a multitude of interpretations within these new works. ‘Like cloud gazing or a Rorschach test,’ Ruby explains, ‘ I want these works to evoke a conversation with the viewer, holding their questioning gaze and provoking them to decipher what they see. The works don’t force the viewer towards a certain narrative, rather, they compel the viewer to fill in the pieces and construct their own.’