Reynolds Gallery is pleased to present Shapes in Space, a two-person exhibition of drawings by Carlton Newton and sculptures by Esther Ruiz at our Main Street gallery. The exhibition will open Friday, March 17, 2023 with a public reception for the artists from 5:00–7:00 pm. The show will run through April 28, 2023.
About the Exhibition
The works presented in Shapes in Space embody the notions of being and becoming, capturing the process of moving from idea to image/object. Both Newton and Ruiz create works based on imagined subjects and spaces, through process-oriented practices. For Newton, the forms depicted in his drawings appear organic, with undulating lines and intertwined structures, but are in-fact wholly abstract subjects created in the artist’s mind. Likewise, Ruiz’s work focuses on exploring fictional spaces imagined by the artist and informed by the history of minimalism and the process of making. Where Ruiz strives to create visual representations of emotional mind-states with mathematical acuteness, Newton explores spatial relationships with an eye toward scientific aesthetics. Newton’s drawings exist simultaneously as both unique works of art, as well as studies for sculptures that may or may not ever come into being. Ruiz’s sculptures act as portals into imagined spaces, as well as relics mined from these immaterial planes. Through engaging with the ideas and artworks presented in Shapes in Space, viewers are urged to investigate how we define what is “real,” while also reveling in the forms and rhythms inherent in the artworks through their process-based production.
About the Artists
Carlton Newton (Richmond, VA) received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco, CA). After teaching appointments at the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) and Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), Newton joined Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts (Richmond, VA), where he served in several key teaching and leadership capacities for the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media from 1987 to 2017. His work has been exhibited at 1708 Gallery; Reynolds Gallery; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (all Richmond, VA); the Art Museum of the Americas (Washington, D.C.); Aqua Art (Miami, FL); Atholl McBean Gallery; the Paule Anglim Gallery; the South of Market Cultural Center (all San Francisco, CA); Danese/Corey Gallery; the New Museum (both New York, NY); the Keith Talent Gallery (London, England); and the Peruvian North American Cultural Institute (Lima, Peru). He is the recipient of the VCU School of the Arts Faculty Achievement Award of Excellence, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, an Honorarium from the New York State Council on the Arts through the New Museum, and a residency in Captiva, Florida from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Newton’s work is included in the collections of several major corporations, including Altria, Dominion, and Markel. He currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
Esther Ruiz (Brooklyn, NY) received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Rhodes College (Memphis, TN) in 2011. She has shown nationally and internationally at various galleries, with solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Brooklyn, NY); Platform Gallery (Baltimore, MD); Reynolds Gallery (Richmond, VA); The Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland, OR); and yours mine & ours (New York, NY). She has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions at galleries including CHART; New Release Gallery (both New York, NY); Carvalho Park (Brooklyn, NY); Deslave (Tijuana, México); LVL3 (Chicago, IL); Monaco (St. Louis, MO); Sobering Galerie (Paris France); and the Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA), among others. Her work has been featured in Art F City, Art News Magazine, VICE, and The Washington Post. Ruiz has also been a visiting lecturer at Moore College of Art and Design (Philadelphia, PA); Santa Barbara City College (Santa Barbara, CA); the School of Visual Arts (New York, NY); and Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), among others. She has an upcoming solo show at CHART in New York City in the spring of 2023.
