Ruby Neri: Staircase

Ruby Neri takes the full range of human interaction as her subject, producing works in which she depicts relationships as alternately mythological, mundane, ecstatic, inscrutable, hilarious, and tragic. Staircase provides a window onto the expansive nature of her project, which includes many different kinds of making that overlap and inform one another. A large-scale bronze sculpture—one of the most complex and intricate forms the artist has made to date—provides a dramatic center of gravity, setting a tone of experimentation not only in terms of physical form and material, but also in terms of drawing and expressive gesture. These qualities are mirrored in the large paintings that find Neri revisiting this important facet of her project for the first time in several years, as well as the pastels and ceramics in which the tactility of color is a primary concern.