Guest Artist – Ruby Hahn

Acrylic and Mixed Media Artist born and raised in Billings, Montana. Ruby graduated college in 2017 where she earned a bachelors degree in Art Education. During college, she studied abroad in Italy; here, she was truly inspired to pursue her passion in the arts. Since then, Ruby has worked consistently to develop her style and technique. Today, you can find her vibrant pieces in homes, restaurants, and galleries across the United States.

Ruby is currently working with self-made fluid acrylics and other mixed media to create these large-scale, statement pieces. She is inspired by the natural world’s inconspicuous relationships and interpretations.

Throughout her abstract paintings, she explores the connections between the microscopic and macroscopic realms. The perception of the pieces is left up to the viewer.
In contrast, Ruby’s wildlife paintings are thought to evoke a different emotion. Over the pandemic, Ruby was unable access her studio where she was creating her abstract work. Confined to her home, she had a few small canvases and some leftover acrylic paint. Ruby found herself getting lost in the process of translating her painting style into the subject matter of loose and expressive wildlife. . She enjoys the challenge of working with these painting techniques that simultaneously explore the duality and similarity of her evolving styles.

Artist Statement

What is it about getting close to something that makes us feel like we know it more? Is it because we are exposed to specifics that we cannot see from afar, or with the normal eye? I find the significance of details fascinating, and want the viewer to examine the connection between diminutive attributes in correspondence to the entirety of a subject. The whole is other than the sum of it’s parts, it has an independent existence.

I want to shape perception by playing with the minutia versus the immensity of a whole. With this in mind, the viewer is forced to become a lens and build a personal viewing experience where one moves physically from seeing the whole painting to a more intimate proximity, almost touching the canvas at the microscopic level. It is at this closeness they become aware of the distinction and affinity of details embedded in the whole image. As the viewer steps back to gain their first perspective, they have not only adjusted physically, but have returned to a more general analysis of the piece.  Their understanding of the imagery recomposes with the larger viewpoint. This fluctuation of perspective represents my interest in microscopic explorations that lead to isolating and evaluating tiny particles of a greater whole.

Throughout my investigation, the viewer will find a sense of play embodied in the ornate and ambiguous elements.  These formal elements are used to represent the malleability of human perception as it morphs and changes with the viewer’s proximity.  It is the little things that come together, rearrange, and reassemble to give us the awareness of the vast.

Some of Ruby’s work: