In This Is Tomorrow Yvette Greslé speaks with Ruby Amanze:
More hereNigerian born Amanze was brought up in Britain and received her fine art training in the United States. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York City, where she has a studio.
Image courtesy of Ruby Amanze
Yvette Greslé: Drawing is central to your practice. You speak about its vulnerability and its humanness. What happens in that space-time between yourself and the surface you are about to fill?
Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze: When you say the word surface I think about my background in textiles and working with fabrics. I see these materials as very similar to paper. I also think about surfaces as skins. Instead of putting something on top of a surface you can put something inside of it. You can dye fibres. You can draw and erase, and re-draw and accumulate an image that seeps into the surface. You can’t ever fully erase a mark. If you spill ink it seeps into the fibre. If you erase you’ve erased off particles of the paper. When I say the word vulnerability I’m connecting it to humanness. The idea that the evidence of the hand is so present; including mistakes and failure. I could spill ink intentionally. I could also in the process of being human spill something or make a mark that perhaps I didn’t fully intend. Then I have to have a conversation with it now that it’s there. The ink might decide to do something and the graphite might be laid on too thickly. All of these different elements are participating in the making of the drawing.
