Past Recipient 2004: Carmen Ruiz-Davila
Everywhere and Here
Clevelander Carmen Ruiz-Davila is the sixth artist in the annual Wendy
L. Moore Emerging Artist Series. Her compelling sculptural installations
are a cornucopia of materials, utilizing sound, music, video, holograms,
fog, light, fiberglass and glass. As an American of Hispanic descent,
Ruiz-Davila exaggerates and parodies social, sexual and cultural stereotypes
relating to European, Pan-Asian and Hispanic subjects. Her art is
inspired by travel catalogues, fashion magazines, television commercials,
home décor, architecture, film and music, all of which she
draws upon to create works that are an intriguing blend of spectacle,
humor and verbal/visual puns.
Ruiz-Davila has described her work as being "candy-coated with
a serious endeavor just below that surface." Humor and parody
are tools she uses to expose and critique biased perceptions of "foreign"
cultures. For example, one of her installations, Swiss Chalet
- 6 Days/5 Nights (2001), consists of a wooden chalet, 2 LCD
monitors, video projection, cast glass shingles and blocks, a fog
machine and sound. The piece plays an audio track containing mixed
samples of Bing Crosby yodeling songs and an Internet yodeling lesson.
The LCD screens play clips of skiers, Miss Switzerland 1984, people
receiving massages and soaking in hot springs at spas, and Swiss landscape
footage, while a video of skiers caught in an avalanche is projected
from the Swiss Chalet onto the wall.
I’m an Occidental Woman in an Oriental Mood for Love (2002),
which is included in this exhibition, takes its title from the Mae
West song in the 1936 film Klondike Annie, in which West plays a woman
who is "kept" by her Chinese lover. Ruiz-Davila’s
installation consists of an 8-foot long sushi plate shaped like a
bed, 8-foot long chopsticks, rubber and resin desserts and velvet
dipping sauces. Both works exemplify Ruiz-Davila’s command of
materials and her playful spirit as she simultaneously attempts to
address complex issues such as sex, consumerism and the media.
Carmen Ruiz-Davila: Everywhere and Here features
a new body of work, including giant castanets, a spoon-shaped hot
tub and multiple dog igloos. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color
catalogue featuring essays by exhibition curator Frank G. Spicer III
and artist, writer and scholar Buzz Spector.
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Carmen Ruiz-Davila
Dog Igloo Village (detail), 2004.
Cloth, wood, fur, resin, fog machine, Aurora Borealis footage. 20
x 22 x 20 each. Courtesy of the artist.
About the Artist
Carmen Ruiz-Davila received her MFA in sculpture at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002 and her BA in
Art History and Latin American History at Tulane University in 1997.
She has participated in gallery shows in Chicago, New Orleans and
Seattle, where she was also a resident at the Pilchuck Glass School
Emerging Artist-in-Residence program and served as an artist assistant
to Petah Coyne. Everywhere and Here will be Ruiz-Davila’s
first museum exhibition.
Past WLM Recipients
Olga Ziemska (2007)
Sarah Kabot (2006)
Alicia Basinger (2005)
Carmen Ruiz-Davila (2004)
Angela White (2003)
Lori Kella (2002)
Tara Giannini (2001)
Christa Donner (2000)
Wendy L. Moore (1999)
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