June 3 – August 21, 2021
BRIE RUAIS | CHRISTOPHER LE BRUN
June 3–August 21, 2021
BRIE RUAIS & CHRISTOPHER LE BRUN
Head-Image
McClain Gallery is thrilled to present a two-person exhibition with British painter Christopher Le Brun and American sculptor Brie Ruais. Both artists find commonality in a conceptual approach to materiality that emerges from their direct, physical handling of their mediums. With a foundational basis in gesture, color, surface, and above all, texture, they embrace the inherent qualities of their respective materials while finding new and unexpected ways to transcend genres.
BRIE RUAIS
Detail of Currents and Tides, 130lbs and 128lbs, 2020
Brie Ruais’ work reflects the breadth of her process-based practice, wherein she uses her body as the only tool to manipulate a mass of clay equal to her body weight. Her physical connection to the process is evident by the works' appearance; hand marks and deep striations meet where footprints end, becoming a map and acting as an extension of a particular place in the way the clay is marked by the press of her body as well as the surface she wedges it into. The movement found in the work corresponds to the movement of the human body, forming a language between the viewer and the piece itself. Found objects pressed into the surface of the wet clay, both natural and manufactured, further develop each piece's story and texture.
Her first institutional solo exhibition, Brie Ruais: Movement at the Edge of the Land, curated by Frauke Josenhans, Associate Curator, Moody Center for the Arts, is currently on view at The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University in Houston, TX.
“Brie Ruais has a unique ability to create powerful ceramic sculptures that, despite their size and weight, seem almost delicate. They symbolize the force and solidity of nature, but also reflect the fragility of our global environment.”
–Frauke V. Josenhans, Associate Curator, Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University
Brie Ruais (b. 1982, Southern California) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts in 2011. Her work has been exhibited at public institutions including the Musée d’art de Joliette, Quebec, Canada; the Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Katzen Center at American University, Washington, DC, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Awards and residencies include The Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (2018), The Sharpe Walentas Studio Program (2018), the Dieu Donne Fellowship (2016), Montello Foundation Residency (2017), Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship (2014), The Shandaken Project Residency (2014) among others. Ruais' work is in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the Pizzuti Collection, OH; the Burger Collection Hong Kong, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. She is featured in Vitamin C: New Perspectives in Contemporary Art, Clay and Ceramics, published by Phaidon (2017).
Brie Ruais, Spreading out From Center, 132lbs (Fort Tilden, October 2019), 2019, glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware, 78 x 75 x 3 inches
CHRISTOPHER LE BRUN
Christopher Le Brun
Aside VI, 2020
oil on canvas (diptych)
16 x 31 7/8 inches
Christopher Le Brun’s paintings call attention to the color and physicality of mark-making to elicit painting's inherent poetry. Le Brun’s drawing, sculptural, and printmaking practices are apparent throughout his new work through his decision to draw directly onto surfaces with the paint tubes or move the pigment around with a palette knife. This energetic application creates highly worked tactile surfaces that lend depth and spatial complexity to Le Brun’s works. With a reverence for British landscape painting and nature, his paintings seek to reveal truth to the eye through color and invite the viewer to enter a dialogue by means of atmosphere and light.
Christopher Le Brun (b. 1951, Portsmouth, UK) has been a celebrated British artist since the early 1980s; he has also been an instrumental public figure in his role as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. His work is in many major museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Tate, London, UK; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the British Museum, London, UK; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK; The Whitworth, Manchester, UK, and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Le Brun lives and works in London.
"Le Brun’s work has much in common with Rothko’s expansive colour-field paintings, which exploit the relationships between colours and tones to create dynamic pictorial spaces that can be experienced bodily as well as visually. Devoid of figurative representation, they nevertheless hint at landscapes and tactile forms that appear to ebb and flow in rhythmic sequence, encouraging the viewer to move in and through the painted space of the canvas."
Christopher Le Brun Antony and Cleopatra, 2020, oil on canvas, 63 1/4 x 55 1/8 inches
WORKS IN EXHIBITION
Brie Ruais
Red Push 3 (130lbs), 2017
glazed stoneware
72 x 23 x 14 inches
Brie Ruais
Spreading out From Center, 132lbs (Fort Tilden, October 2019), 2019
glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware
78 x 75 x 3 inches
Brie Ruais
Spreading out From Center, 132 lbs (Vacant Lot Botanicals September 2019), 2019
glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware
80 x 78 x 2 inches
Private Collection
Christopher Le Brun
Antony and Cleopatra, 2020
oil on canvas
63 1/4 x 55 1/8 inches
Brie Ruais
Currents and Tides, 130lbs and 128lbs, 2020
glazed stoneware, hardware
80 x 57 x 6 inches
Christopher Le Brun
D23, 2018
oil on paper
paper: 59 1/16 x 41 3/8 inches
frame: 61 3/8 x 43 1/2 inches
Christopher Le Brun
D24, 2018
oil on paper
paper: 59 1/6 x 41 3/8 inches
frame: 61 3/8 x 43 1/2 inches
Brie Ruais
Red Push 2 (130lbs), 2017
glazed stoneware
72 x 23 x 14 inches
Christopher Le Brun
Cloud and Cloud, 2020
oil on canvas (diptych)
canvas: 31 7/8 x 23 7/8 inches
INSTALLATION VIEWS
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021
Installation view, Brie Ruais & Christopher Le Brun, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, June 2021