artists

PHE RUIZ
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Phe Ruiz’s paintings meld paradoxes of the physical and the emotional. In the process of turning psychological pain into concrete canvases, she combines thick, labor-intensive paint with intuition and impulse. The artist says, "I want to paint emotion about how hard times can be. Sometimes you get these blissful, pretty paintings, but usually its about the things that drag you down. The way people can be hard on you."

Though her paintings are informed by abstract expressionism and jazz, the driving motivation of her work is intensely personal. Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, says "Ruiz works in an abstract vein in a driven, intuitive manner, heaping color onto her canvases." The San Jose Museum of Art has selected Phe Ruiz as the 2006 recipient for the Eduardo Carrillo Prize in Painting, an award offered to an artist whose work merits greater attention.

Ruiz, whose father is Mexican and mother is Italian, was introduced to art on a childhood trip to Rome. She then studied for a short time at the San Francisco Art Institute. Phe Ruiz lives and paints in San Francisco.