Ruth Ige
The worlds within the blue
This catalogue of paintings, poems and prose by Ruth Ige encompasses work from 2022 onwards, spanning the artist's solo exhibitions in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and concluding in her studio in 2025 with work in progress, including experiments with West African dried indigenous leaves and pigments, in advance of her participation in the 36th São Paulo Biennale, Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice. In her painting commentaries, she muses on the foundational elements of her practice - 'my blue palette, the black figure and exploring blackness' - the conversation between abstraction and figuration, speculative fiction, and 'the poetic notions of blue', about which she writes
Blue is the colour I build my worlds in, where flashes of various colours make their brief appearances. Where the black figures I create are allowed to be free and be themselves. They roam between dimensions of history and fiction. Hidden and surrounded, but seen within the safety of these havens. It is a language I have made my own.
Published by Stevenson | Catalogue 99 | August 2025
Softcover, 180 pages | Unavailable
