Ruth Pastine - Light as Air

November 4th - December 31st, 2023

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Houston, Texas – Gallery Sonja Roesch is pleased to announce ‘Light as Air,’ an exhibition of selected paintings by California-based artist Ruth Pastine. This is the artist’s fifth solo show at the gallery. 

 

Known for her minimalist color-focused paintings, Ruth Pastine explores the experience of color in luminous paintings and multi-panel installations. She engages the three complementary color systems which, although seemingly finite, access limitless possibility. Working serially is an essential aspect of her creative process as she evolves her oil paintings in concert with and in juxtaposition to one another furthering the interaction of color. Pastine creates paintings for direct experience and heightened perception through resonant color relationships, lending itself to existential inquiry and her philosophical interests in the sublime. Pastine continues to evolve pure abstraction and follows the concepts of Minimalist theory, transcending the materiality of the hand-painted surfaces she produces an image that is both objective and dematerialized. 

 

Born and raised in New York City, Ruth Pastine is recognized for her Neo-minimalist color field paintings advancing the seminal Light & Space movement emerging from Southern California in the 1960’s. Pastine received a four-year scholarship to Cooper Union for her B.F.A. Upon graduating she was awarded a post-graduate independent residency grant to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received her M.F.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York where she focused on painting, color theory, and critical studies. In 2014, Ruth Pastine had a solo exhibition of selected paintings entitled, Attraction 1993-2013 at MOAH Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA. In 2015, she opened, Present Tense, exhibiting paintings and works on paper from 2010-2015 at the CAM Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA. Upcoming in 2025 Pastine will open an exhibition of new paintings curated by Andrea Gyorody, Museum Director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA. 

 

Ruth Pastine’s paintings are included in numerous public collections including the de Young & Legion of Honor, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; MOAH Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; MCASD Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; MFAH Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Selected corporate collections include: AXA Art, Cologne, Germany; Brookfield Properties, Ernst & Young Plaza, Los Angeles, CA; CIM Group Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA; PIMCO Global Headquarters, Newport Beach, CA; Proskauer, Washington, D.C.; Qualcomm, San Diego, CA; Tarsadia Investments Headquarters, Newport Beach, CA; United Airlines LAX, Los Angeles, CA; UNICEF, New York, NY among others. Ruth Pastine lives and works in Southern California.