Catherine Ruane

I live in southern CA where there is a profusion of palm trees, cactus, yucca, and old-growth chaparral. My drawings emerge from a studio process that includes the study of native plants often overlooked in favor of thirsty exotics.  These local plants are wired to survive the challenges of the southern California desert environment.  Roots are designed to penetrate the vast depths of dry soil and leave patterns that can retain precious moisture in its arid location. These natural designs have been failproof and that for me is sublime.  

 I see the studio process as a search into the mysterious border where the physical meets the mystical. I methodically build images as a visual expression of contrasts between the appearance of natural forms and what they have come to symbolize both culturally and personally.  My images are made with an understanding that unique interpretations will invariably be attached by a rotation of passing viewers and I welcome them.

Dance Me To The Edge

This large-scale installation consists of 12 individual round drawings 12” in diameter surrounding a large 51” diameter drawing. The central large drawing features a Joshua Tree blossom expressed with its dependency on a tiny moth for its survival as a species. The entire installation is a metaphor for our own survival. This group of drawings illustrates a delicate balance of cooperation and the prerequisite time span necessary to birth new life. The 12” roundel drawings of the Yucca Moth and its characteristics surround the central Blossom image referencing a clock marking the minutes, days, and years a tree requires to mature. In this work, time is part of the process both literally and technically. The Yucca Brevifolia must live the better part of sixty years to produce its first blossom.  These drawings were created within many studio hours allowing for the study and development of meticulous symbiotic details of both the blossom and its pollinator moth. I use the simplicity of basic drawing which is similar to detailed note-taking and I couple it with the time it takes to help it sing.

The title, Dance Me To The Edge is from a comment my east coast cousin made when visiting my home in the California desert. Looking at the faraway, unobstructed desert horizon he said was like “looking into the edge of infinity”.