textura obscura opening (2)

Saturday, September 21, 2024, 11:00 AM, in-person. Immerse yourself in the world of Donna Ruff during the opening reception of Textura Obscura at the Miami Beach Visual Arts Gallery, where the theme of loss weaves through every piece. Ruff’s work explores loss in its many forms—from the physical removal of parts of a page and fragments of information, to the diminishing understanding between cultures, the fading tradition of print, and the impulse to memorialize events. On view through October 31, 2024. Miami Beach Visual Arts Gallery, 1602A Washington Ave, Miami Beach, FL. Free and open to the public.

These photos are of folded newspapers I used to wrap my dishes when moving from Brooklyn to Santa Fe in 2010. The harsh light and shadow of the New Mexican sun struck me as something to photograph, and when I opened the folder on my desktop in the dark days of 2020 when I was isolating at home, I was inspired to print them and cut them to make abstract collages. Some page content remains, and they suggest architecture while referencing history. They are both pictorially and materially dimensional, as the folds and shadows of the images play against the folds and shadows of the paper.