NZArtMonthly

Albany multi-media artist Ruth Sumner is on her way to the Florence Biennial in December 2005. Graduating from AUT with an MA (Hons) in Art and Design, the work which brought Sumner into view for this prestigious event was Witness Marks and Epilogue fortuitously noticed by a member of the Florence Biennial on a hotmail website. Sumner is naturally excited and a little baffled by the prospect of such prominent and valuable exposure in Italy. Finding herself in this rare position is a boon for New Zealand art and artists and is an opportunity not to be taken for granted.

Ruth Sumner An Icon for the 21st Century (the gospel according to Ruth), 2005

But taking things or ideas for granted is clearly not one of Sumner's traits. Traveling to Florence is Icon for 21st Century (The Gospel according to Ruth) a complex work in which the outward appearance belies the tangle of associations it is possible for the viewer to experience. The viewer is presented with a paradox. On the one hand Sumner has imbued the work with a heady mix of intricate process and deep passion, on the other, the work is pristinely elegant and reserved. It glows with a luminous reverence for form, process and materials, but also for age old traditions which inform Sumner's practice, her iconography and own unique history.

At first glance the work could be mistaken for a futuristic display in a Bang and Olufsen showroom. But this impression merely highlights the degree to which Sumner has distilled myriad historical and personal associations in a "state of the art" work of fine but spartan detailing. The work functions as an amalgam of personal nuances and related strands of meaning drawn together in universal forms and ideas which the viewer by way of association then pulls apart, literally and metaphorically. Similarly, for the artist 21st Century is an attempt to "disentangle what is spiritual from what is religious and patriarchal".

Projecting as a work of 21st century modernity and functionality 21st Century gives way on closer inspection to an object of deep contemplation on a spiritual and associative level. The base of the object is made of pearl perspex lit from within, while the top is a 600mm sandblasted glass disc which is etched with acid paste by way of a screen printing process. The design derives from a doily which sat by her mother's bed during long periods of her life. Over the etched glass sits a perspex equal arm cross which takes the three dimensional form of a Gothic arch. Each "arm" holds nine glass slides which are sandwiched together with different coloured paints.

Sumner describes the underlying function of the plates, "Each set of nine slides have the potential to be assembled into a larger grid that has a picture etched into it, like a puzzle. So there are four sets of slides, green, blue, yellow and red and four different pictures. However, because of the nature and size of the light box it isn't physically possible to assemble the slides into the larger pictures, the viewer can only gather glimpses of what each image might be by looking at the fragments ... it's an act of faith, you have to trust they are really there. The slides allude to the leaves of a book (last seen as paper in Epilogue) and hark back to the earliest spiritual writings and more specifically to the 'books of hours' that once counted off the lives of women. They are also a homage to the printmaker in me and hint at the possibility of an edition without actually giving in to it".

Contemplation of the work foregrounds the way one association seeps into the next in an endless chain of signifiers. For example, while the work partly involves the condensing of Sumner's personal domestic traditions and family attachments, there is no getting away from the presence of religious symbolism and spiritualism as indicated in the Gothic arch and the equal arm cross. For Sumner the primitive cross form represents an intersection of the commonplace with the divine. Fitting, as against the broader patriarchal disciplines of both Gothic architecture and religious dogma Sumner sets the tradition of female domestic craft at one end of the social scale and hints at the rigors of female piety at the other with her oblique reference to books of hours. Female history has for the most part been under the control of a patriarchal society and in a unique way this work symbolizes the centrality, dedication and sacrifice of women within that society but who are and always have been intimately associated with objects of great beauty across the social divide.

Ruth Sumner An Icon for the 21st Century (the gospel according to Ruth) detail, 2005

Linked with these references to the past is also a reverence for the traditions of printmaking as a suitable and fitting medium by which spiritual associations with her maternal forebears might be expanded. The etching process has formally captured the great delicacy of the precious object, in the process Sumner extracts and universalizes the traditions and beauty of domestic craft while paying homage to common art and social histories, and the great tradition of makers. Not only does she show great reverence for that history and those traditions but also by implication the individual responses of viewers.

Ruth Sumner is raising funds to freight her work (and herself!) to Florence in December. Parties interested in helping Ruth can contact her on 021 361505, or email: ruth.s@paradise.net.nz to assist.