DEEP ROOTS: works by Gallery 1313 member Heather Ruthig
May 14-25
Process Gallery
Heather Ruthig has been creating vibrant and innovative artworks ranging from photography, painting and sculpture for nearly 20 years. She has also been retained by the Stratford festival as a Prop Builder where she has crafted elaborate masks, welded sculptural prop elements and helped to bring to life the visual majesty this world-renowned repertory theatre is famous for.
A graduate of the University of Guelph fine art program, Heather has consistently been inspired by nature and the beauty within it. Love of plants permeates her life, even venturing out on foraging expeditions with her family. Heather revels in the pure form of a plant, whether magnified into abstraction or simplified by removing its colour.
She strives to recognize the magic and power inherent in plants and nature. Her most recent works are sculptural wall pieces relating to the “Doctrine of Signatures”. Fueled by the fertile imaginations from medieval times, observations were made regarding the attributes of plants. This doctrine suggests that certain plants, when consumed, will have beneficial effects on the specific parts of the body the plant resembles. Her “Shakespeare’s Flowers” series also relates to the lost knowledge of plants, each had a symbolic meaning that the people of that time related to.
Interwoven with magic, science and text. Heather’s pieces rouse a personal reaction from the viewer relating to their past experiences. Housed in Acrylic museum cases and shadowboxes, her works are suggestive of something lost, now found, that needs to be preserved.