Ruth Philo

Ruth’s paintings are often site specific, exploring colour and abstraction associated with place and walking. A site becomes a physical and metaphysical source for painting, sometimes providing found pigment that Ruth makes into paint as well as emotional or unconscious connections that become resonant in the painting. A sense of the painting’s process, like an archaeology comes to the surface in order for it to feel finished. Recently Ruth has been developing work through artist residencies including those at the Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia in 2023 and PADA, Barreiro in 2022. 

Her interest in colour led Ruth to hosting the podcast ‘‘A Geography of Colour’, where she talks with other painters about their relationship with colour. Ruth is currently researching colour’s potential for wellbeing and engaging with emerging neuroscience and neuroaesthetics, to explore the embodied connections of colour in painting – physical, emotional, cultural and as memory. She is working on a series of paintings ‘A Pilgrimage to Blue’ that look at the history and significance of the colour blue, inspired by her travels in Greece and along the Silk Road.

Biography
Ruth Philo studied BA History of Art at the University of Warwick and MA Fine Art, at Norwich University of the Arts and is currently based in Suffolk. Exhibiting widely in the UK and abroad, Ruth’s work has been selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and she has had solo shows at Westminster Library, M2 Gallery and a joint show with Yves Beaumont at Studio 1.1, London. In 2023 she was selected for the International Painting Symposium and Residency at the Rothko Museum, Latvia, and has been part of British Council shows in Iasi, Romania and Gdansk, Poland together with exhibitions in China, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US. Her work can be found in collections in China, Ireland, Latvia, Switzerland, UK and US.