Glasses & Grasses

I am interested in exploring how order and beauty relate to peace of mind, through my art.  This interest comes out of a need to organize and measure my own life with care, tenderness & vulnerability.

I’m interested in how much can be seen when almost nothing is there.

The quest for stability in a world of movement and change is something I aim to address through photography, drawing, paper weaving and painting. I’m engaged in the dialogue between these mediums and how they enhance each other and can express the same sentiments in totally different ways, yet through a consistent way of seeing. I often feel that everything is loud, big and coming at me quickly, making me feel fragile as if I could disappear.  I reference that feeling through all of these mediums, over the past 35 years of art making.

I see the cycle of the present slipping into the past and that fluidity as visually poetic; capturing moments that almost don’t exist.

Ruth Lauer-Manenti received a BFA in painting from The School of Visual Arts in NYC and an MFA in drawing, printmaking and painting from the Yale School of Art, where she later taught drawing and printmaking. She also taught drawing, painting, and printmaking at Dartmouth College. Ruth’s work has been exhibited at the Bill Maynes Art Gallery, the Lower East Side Printshop, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Paula Cooper Gallery, The Griffin Museum of Photography, Dartmouth College and Le Salon Vert in Geneva, Switzerland. Ruth was a recipient of the 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts photography grant.

Ruth’s work has been collected by the New York Public Library as well as many private collections including Lois Conner, Louise Fishman, An-My Lê, Frances Barth, Bruce Gagnier, Sylvia Mangold, Seane Corn, Dan Walsh, Chris Martin, Connie Hansen and Russell Peacock.