The work: Ruth Groves, Around You, 2022. Acrylic on canvas, 152 x 102cm. Courtesy: the artist.
The practice of Melbourne-based artist Ruth Groves builds narratives from personal experience, transforming them into text-based works that utilise both literal storytelling and an advanced visual vocabulary. The work Around You is a fragmented work that speaks to the way in which we often experience the modern world. Within an increasingly globalised and systematised society subject to technological and capitalist fancies, we often feel a lack of control over our own lives and relationships. Through this work, the artist expresses a nihilistic philosophy regarding the impact of “the seemingly endless number of things that happen around us, whether we accept them or not”. Each letter is made up of sharply etched bands of colour, each drawn from the same palette but executed individualistically, and striking out beyond the edges of the typeface. These symbols sit atop a background that is segmented between pink and blue, the rigid lines breaking up passages of letters regardless of their connection within words or sentences. There is no punctuation or spacing, creating deliberate confusion — things happen for a reason, but our ability to understand or find meaning within a turbulent modern world is met with barely controlled chaos.