Anna Ruth is a visual artist, currently living and working in Jyväskylä, Finland. A former student of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver, Canada) she completed her DNSEP (Masters of Fine Arts) at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Cornouaille (France) in 1998 and was awarded a Post Diplôme from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon, France in 2004.
Anna Ruth has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canada, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden.
Anna Ruth is compelled by place specific culture/identity. Her work is conceptual, minimalist and poetic, but realistic forms and figures are also frequently represented. She draws and paints on various surfaces, including walls and repurposed material. Line and two-dimensional texture are essential elements in her drawings and plants are sometimes also directly incorporated into her work. Colour is used carefully and an important part of her surface is usually left untouched. Reoccurring themes deal with traces, territory, maps, fences and other human designs that are used to define belonging.
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Anna Ruth’s work has been published in numerous catalogues and her maps were published by the Mäntykustannus publishing company in 2008 (Around the world in eight days) and by the Emily Carr University Pile Driver Editions in 2010 (Sensory Maps of Vancouver). Her work can also be found in public art collections of the following cities: Jyväskylä, and Alajärvi, Finland; Palma Campania, Italy; Vancouver, Canada and Washington DC, USA.
Anna Ruth also produces public artwork such as her Sensory Maps for the City of Vancouver as one of the six Mapping and Marking projects presented during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. In 2016, Anna Ruth was commissioned to create a 22 metre digital window painting for the first apartment building in the new Kangas residential area in Jyväskylä, Finland. And in 2018 she was commissioned to produce integrated artwork for the doors and patient rooms of one wing in the new regional hospital NOVA, Jyväskylä. Other commissions include the three part altarpiece for the Kipinä Chapel in Jyväskylä and murals in various children's health centres in Jyväskylä, Finland.
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Along side her creation, Anna Ruth is involved in inciting community interest in contemporary art. Since 2003 she has organized and curated thematic exhibitions in unconventional exhibition spaces such as barns, home apartments and vacant commercial spaces. In 2009, she co-founded the nomadic art gallery: Äkkigalleria with Juho Jäppinen. This special gallery does not reside in one fixed location, but regular exhibitions are organized in spur of the moment events in temporarily vacant spaces.
Other projects include the 6-year project Laatikkomo - six degrees of photography at Kauppakatu 14 in Jyväskylä and on the web at www.laatikkomo.fi; the House Games triennial, which takes place in a home apartment; and the year-long ti-la2016. which presented 52 exhibitions by 52 different Finnish artists, one exhibition for every single week of the year.
In 2017, Äkkigalleria began to collaborate with other curators and organizations beginning with curators Hanna-Kaisa Hämäläinen and Marko Hämäläinen in the co-production of the 100 Finnish Photographers project, and in 2018 with the Film Centre of Central Finland for the Tuokaa Tuoli! a wandering film theatre.
Anna Ruth, along with Juho Jäppinen, has received 4 awards for exceptional promotion of the arts in Central Finland. (TAIKE cultural award 2011, Finnish Cultural Award for Central Finland 2014, Mid Nordic Cultural Award 2015 and the 2016 Cultural Award for the City of Jyväskylä.)
In 2020–2021 Anna Ruth was invited as the curator for the XXV Mäntän kuvataideviikot.
Anna Ruth has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canada, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden.
Anna Ruth is compelled by place specific culture/identity. Her work is conceptual, minimalist and poetic, but realistic forms and figures are also frequently represented. She draws and paints on various surfaces, including walls and repurposed material. Line and two-dimensional texture are essential elements in her drawings and plants are sometimes also directly incorporated into her work. Colour is used carefully and an important part of her surface is usually left untouched. Reoccurring themes deal with traces, territory, maps, fences and other human designs that are used to define belonging.
***
Anna Ruth’s work has been published in numerous catalogues and her maps were published by the Mäntykustannus publishing company in 2008 (Around the world in eight days) and by the Emily Carr University Pile Driver Editions in 2010 (Sensory Maps of Vancouver). Her work can also be found in public art collections of the following cities: Jyväskylä, and Alajärvi, Finland; Palma Campania, Italy; Vancouver, Canada and Washington DC, USA.
Anna Ruth also produces public artwork such as her Sensory Maps for the City of Vancouver as one of the six Mapping and Marking projects presented during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. In 2016, Anna Ruth was commissioned to create a 22 metre digital window painting for the first apartment building in the new Kangas residential area in Jyväskylä, Finland. And in 2018 she was commissioned to produce integrated artwork for the doors and patient rooms of one wing in the new regional hospital NOVA, Jyväskylä. Other commissions include the three part altarpiece for the Kipinä Chapel in Jyväskylä and murals in various children's health centres in Jyväskylä, Finland.
***
Along side her creation, Anna Ruth is involved in inciting community interest in contemporary art. Since 2003 she has organized and curated thematic exhibitions in unconventional exhibition spaces such as barns, home apartments and vacant commercial spaces. In 2009, she co-founded the nomadic art gallery: Äkkigalleria with Juho Jäppinen. This special gallery does not reside in one fixed location, but regular exhibitions are organized in spur of the moment events in temporarily vacant spaces.
Other projects include the 6-year project Laatikkomo - six degrees of photography at Kauppakatu 14 in Jyväskylä and on the web at www.laatikkomo.fi; the House Games triennial, which takes place in a home apartment; and the year-long ti-la2016. which presented 52 exhibitions by 52 different Finnish artists, one exhibition for every single week of the year.
In 2017, Äkkigalleria began to collaborate with other curators and organizations beginning with curators Hanna-Kaisa Hämäläinen and Marko Hämäläinen in the co-production of the 100 Finnish Photographers project, and in 2018 with the Film Centre of Central Finland for the Tuokaa Tuoli! a wandering film theatre.
Anna Ruth, along with Juho Jäppinen, has received 4 awards for exceptional promotion of the arts in Central Finland. (TAIKE cultural award 2011, Finnish Cultural Award for Central Finland 2014, Mid Nordic Cultural Award 2015 and the 2016 Cultural Award for the City of Jyväskylä.)
In 2020–2021 Anna Ruth was invited as the curator for the XXV Mäntän kuvataideviikot.
