(click image for more details)Any given Sunday (Tree and car tracks), 2005
net curtain, plaster, tea, ink
27cm x 25cm
Any given Sunday (Man in chair), 2006
27cm x 22cm
Untitled (Lake Monument), 2008
32cm x 22cm x 22cm
Simon Le Ruez makes sculptures, installations and drawings which reflect on notions of escape, longing, desire and possible places sought in order to seek relief. Using materials as varied as leather, pearls, copper, wax and artificial trees, his recent work conjures a sense of imagined yet dislocated landscapes that seemingly oscillate somewhere between Utopian and uncertain identities, appearing as spaces of both escape and incarceration.
While these pieces contrive to suggest strange, dream like destinations, they also assume a series of metaphorical complexities through the surprising contexts or settings within which Le Ruez places them. He has stated that making lies at the core of his practice and this process of discovery is evident in a string of carefully staged aesthetic contradictions.
If the interpretation of landscape expresses an uninhibited narrative of fantasy in Le Ruez's work, other pieces take on a more ambiguous and conceptual form, injecting a dose of conflict into the proceedings and jolting the viewer back to a very particular, visceral place. What unites the work is an inherent pivoting of physical and psychological tensions, the wistful promise of escape and fulfilment, and the playful suggestion of optimism tinged with an almost inevitable melancholic resolve.
Paul Stone, 2008
find out more about this artist
find out more about Paul Stone
