RUTH JEYAVEERAN

Brooklyn, NY

CREATIVE DISCIPLINE-
Textiles/Installation

PRIMARY MEDIUM(S)-
Wool and felt

ARTIST STATEMENT-
My practice exists at the intersection of art, craft, and design. I work with wool to examine our relationship to the unseen objects we use and interact with every day. I’m interested in the many ways textiles are inextricably linked with human history, technology, and culture but remain a mystery to most of us. My goal is to place these materials traditionally associated with the domestic, decorative, functional, and feminine in a new context. My process celebrates the repetitive motion of making as a therapeutic experience. I aim to create a meditative space, a way to slow down and connect with older traditions as well as my own body. Felting is tactile, hands-on work. Wool is primal, spiritual, connected to nature and a source of warmth and shelter. In the final stages of the felting process, I rub the fiber between my fingers, coaxing the newly formed textile into shape. This felt “skin” is pliable and flexible, a fertile ground that can be embedded with objects, built up or carved into. Recurrent themes in my work focus on the body, the environment, and our broken connection to nature. What Came Before, an installation of soft sculptures, explores the interconnectedness of objects in the material world. Presented in a “reverse taxonomy” these “artifacts” evoke archaeology, natural history, and the sea, which hews all things down to their essence. The organic and utilitarian forms are made out of wool and connected by yarn emphasizing our shared history and shared fate with the natural world. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY-
Ruth Jeyaveeran is an artist, designer and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Her soft sculptures, installations and wall hangings have been exhibited at various galleries throughout New York including ABC No Rio, Field Projects and Westbeth Gallery. She’s been awarded residencies at La Napoule Art Foundation, PADA Studios, the Jentel Foundation and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2018 she was an advisor on sustainable textile practices for the Bio Design Challenge at the Museum of Modern Art, and a juror for the Nancy Konigsberg Fiber Art Award given by the Textile Study Group of New York. She created and curates Crafting Change an annual exhibit of textile-based work for New York Textile Month. Currently she's an Assistant Professor of Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has also taught courses in textiles and fiber at Parsons School of Design. 

Instagram-
@r_jeyaveeran