Ruth Le Gear (b.1985) holds a studio at The Model in Sligo, Ireland.
Her work has emerged from the outcomes of research, collaboration and fieldwork-based around water and its potentials. She has engaged with various water bodies from Irish lakes and waterfalls, Arctic Icebergs, the Baltic sea, the high desert waters and so many in between; listening to the mystical, mythical, and metaphysical forces that act upon and interact with water. Her process involves serial dilutions, which form tiny poetic time machines where each water sample is explored to see what is held within. Her work finds form in moving image, sculpture, sound, and water remedies.
Le Gear has exhibited solo at:
(2018) Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (DE),
(2017) Water Senses | Leitrim Sculpture Centre,
Trace at the Centre of Contemporary Art, Gdansk (2015),
Water that Sleeps at Galway Arts Centre (2009).
Group shows include
Artworks at Carlow Visual (IE) (2019),
Solas Nua | New Voices of Ireland | Washington DC (2018),
[Art_Ecology] LAAW + SFAI (2016),
Et Si On S’etati Trompe at the Centre Cultural Irelandais (2015),
Art at Tell St.Gallen, Switzerland (2014), and
Ev+a Limerick City Gallery of Art (2008).
“I make essences from water. I have collected icebergs in the Arctic from a tall ship, wandered the desert of New Mexico and stood on the tip of the Cape of Good Hope. In these places and where ever I am, my intention is always to try to communicate with the water that is there, this most beautiful life-giving force of nature. Each body of water is totally unique. It has its own physical and spiritual history, its own mineral content, and its own unique vibration that it imparts on living beings that it encounters. If you’ve ever had a drink from a crystal clear mountain stream, and one from an ancient well or a swim in the sea, you will know that all water is not the same. My life’s work is to understand and communicate with water. I explore it, in all its layers, the tiny micro-organisms that live in one drop, the huge oceans and ocean creatures, lakes, rivers, clouds, mist, rain, sleet, hale, icebergs, and glaciers. I live on the North West coast of Ireland and it rains here a lot, mostly pure north Atlantic water, swept up in the storms above Greenland and Iceland.”
Website: https://www.ruthlegear.com/
https://platform31.localartsireland.ie/artists/ruth-le-gear
