Deeply influenced by place, Ruais’ work also dialogues with her environment. Bone Dice showcases pieces she created after moving from Brooklyn to New Mexico. This work expresses her new experiences with the desert landscape, and speaks to redirection, vulnerability, birth, and decay.
Ruais’ process of making is very gestural and all-intensive, and each piece uses 130 lbs of clay– mirroring her body weight. She chooses this level of engagement because she is “interested in what is unearthed within a dialogue between two bodies/beings. What is the third thing or idea that is formed between the two?”
She adds that “130lbs of clay is a lot! It’s a dense and obstinate mass. We engage in a conversation where we're both asking each other what the other is capable of, then the result is a piece that resembles the act of relating; it's the meandering path of a conversation, a brainstorm, a getting-to-know-each-other. And then that happens between the viewer and the work.”