About
The use of space through drawing is intrinsic to Ruth Scott’s art practice, creating a space to make, a space to think and a space for exchange. Her performance, video and sound works explore the relationship between drawing and space, examining drawing as an intimately performed act. Operating between the disciplines of drawing, video, sound and performance creates the opportunity for each medium to be autonomous yet still capturing the activity of drawing. This approach explores the relationship between drawing and space, examining the mark making activity as a performative act. By communicating the intimate relationship that occurs between her body and a chosen space, she asks the viewer to consider the parallels that exist between drawing and the human body.
Throughout this research Ruth have been interested in binaries, and in particular the discussion that surrounds public and private space, which she believes are intrinsically linked. The literary works of French philosopher Georges Bataille and the binary elements of public and private that he questions supports the investigation of her own body and the space it inhabits. Bataille makes references to the nature of man’s collective and how the individual responds to it. By using Bataille’s definition of the individual exploration as ‘inner experience’ or ‘the sovereign experience’, she investigates how a private and intimate act, (such as drawing) can exist in a public sphere, by displacing and exploiting these perceived boundaries. The writing of Jacques Derrida has invited us to further investigate the evidence of trace through the drawing methodology. His notion of, ‘there is no trace without resistance, and there is no etching on a surface without pain’ relates strongly to the artists belief and intention of obliterating previous history and memory through the drawing act.