ARTIST STATEMENT/RUTH ROSNER

Frequently representing refugee women, the totemic women I sculpt are compelled by what they have seen, what they have endured—often cataclysmic events [both natural and man made]—to bear witness, to galvanize the viewer. Much of my art pays tribute to the strength, endurance, courage, as well as the creative spirit of those who have been Displaced from all they have known, who have within them the will and the power to try to reconstruct their lives with what they have left, with what they are able to find to reconstruct "home."

I. ABOUT THE WORK/ABOUT THE PROCESS

The totemic women I sculpt

evolve from remnants, shards, debris, discarded objects,

evocative relics of the street.

The source of their vulnerability

is the source of their strength and power.

I scour streets and trolley tracks,

Seacoasts and woods for rusted metal, wood, stones,

arresting rubble.

I gather rocks shattered and chiseled,

roots and branches ripped from trees,

stones and wood worn down by the sea.

Beginning with the face,

I work intuitively,

excavating from the inside out.

I incorporate found materials into the figures

as I construct forms

with wire, plaster, and clay, some from volcanic ash.

These are women of all races, ages, rising out of

Bare bones construction materials, materials from the ground,

objects rusted or worn.

Empowered by the yoking together of scraps and shards

from industry and the earth,

these figures, alone or in concert,

speak, sing, shout.

They stand as

guardians, oracles,

voices for the voiceless

and the unheard.

II. RECREATING HOME

These sculptures represent women

emerging from the past,

the Displaced, the Refugee,

going forward on their journeys.

Embedded in these figures

are remnants

of their former life,

touchstones,

memories of what they used to call home.

As they seek

safety,

shelter,

community,

they embody a new sense of place.

The remnants they bear transform them.

There is a metamorphosis.

They become a recreation, an embodiment of home.

They are recreated

by what they choose to hold close, by what they carry

forward.

III. THE REFUGEE WOMEN/THE DISPLACED

These are the women who witness—

the Displaced—

the ones who walk and walk

from the desolation of loss

of family, friend, home—

seeking shelter

to save who they can, what they can

the past, the future.

They hold within memories.

They walk on forward.

The sculptures in this series speak for them

and for those who walk with them

throughout the world,

throughout time.