Art | Examining Injustice + Psychology, A New Impetus for Ruby Rumié

CARTAGENA, Colombia––Ruby Rumié’s multi-disciplinary work focuses on her research on the locals of Getsemaní, a historical neighborhood of Cartagena de Indias, which has seen a transformation. Once a deluge for drugs and prostitution, the neighborhood now is home swanky bars, boutique hotels, and with those, an influx of money.

Featured image: Ruby Rumié, Mujeres en Bodegon, 2016 inkjet print on satin paper, laminated in luster matte, 51 3/16 x 51 3/16 inches

According to Nohra Haime Gallery, her recent exhibition Ruby Rumié: Weaving Streets (New York, November 16, 2017 – January 6, 2018) featured a series of photographs, a video, a poster and five volumes on Cartagena’s ambulant street vendors. “Based on injustice and psychology, and the impact of modern life in the daily lives of common people,” Rumié’s sociological research and quest of a corporeal exegesis analyzes the duality between the “white-headed boy” lens of transformation and progress and that of gentrification and propriety. Her process suggests a new impetus as artist with the question: “What is the meaning of art and the commitment of artist to society?”

That in which there is not only an aesthetic and poetic revelation, but also a search of how to manage social and psychological problems through creation.

She carries this commitment into her genders studies works, which as Miguel Gonzalez, Museo Rayo Curator writes, have further led to the scrutinization and warning about the conditions and discrimination women face in their domestic sphere.

The observation of women in marginal performances seems to be the main interest in the arguments that Ruby Rumié invites to discuss (Cartagena de Indias, 1958). These works are the result of a field work that includes not only the knowledge of certain problems but the negotiation with the protagonists that become the main visual input in the works.

For example, in her project Hálito Divino (Divine Breath), which focuses on giving social and creative agency to women who have suffered from domestic violence, Rumié proposes a therapeutic and healing exercise.

The symbolic mourning as an exit to redeem the pain and help the duel. From that desire, Divine Breath was born with 100 women invited to deposit the energy of their breath in a liberating ritual with a great symbolic load. The white vessels as votive objects containing feelings torn.

About the artist: Ruby Rumié was born in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia in 1958. She lives and works between Cartagena and Santiago, Chile. She studied painting, drawing and sculpture at the School of Fine Arts of Cartagena de Indias, the David Manzur Academy in Bogotá and has participated in several workshops with artists such as Maria Teresa Hincapié, Eugenio Dittborn, Fabián Rendón and Jean Pierre Accoult.  She has held exhibitions in Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Cartagena, Colombia; Santiago, Valparíso and Temuco, Chile; Miami, New York, and Washington D.C., USA; Rouen and Paris, France. She recently participated in the international section of the First International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

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