Portraits - works by Ruby Chew



Opens: 6:00pm, Friday 5 August

Concludes:Wednesday 31 August



MagazineGallery

83a HindleyStreet (Clubhouse Lane), Adelaide




Opening speaker: Professor Rod Taylor, founder and former Director of the Adelaide Central School of Art




Hot off the heels of her win of the SALA Festival Award at the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition 2011, emerging visual artist Ruby Chew presents her first solo exhibition at Magazine Gallery as part of the 2011 SALA Festival.





Titled Portraits, the show includes a collection of oil paintings, watercolours and drawings. Ruby's portraiture employs a blend ofstrongly contrasting tones, physical embellishments and hyper-realism. Herfascination with people and their intricacies has led her to continue paintingportraits that celebrate her sitter's appearances.



"While eachof my portraits stand alone as bold, iconic and at times confronting images, asa whole the works together also represent my personal community - the peoplethat make up the world around me," Ruby says.
"My paintings and drawings dealwith aesthetic identity and the construction of image, and in particular therole of adornment, such as body modifications and fashion, as a means ofpersonal expression. Using realistic modelling of the figure in contrast toflat, bold patterns, they deny illusionist space to point out the dual power ofthe canvas as a window into another world and a material object."




Graduating with Honours from the Adelaide CentralSchool of Art in 2010, Ruby was selected for inclusion in the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition2011. During the three-week survey show, Ruby's work was the winner of twoprestigious awards; the $5,000 Hill Smith Gallery/Helpmann Academy FriendsAward and the inaugural SALA Festival Award, which covered the cost of PremiumRegistration for the 2011 SALA Festival.