Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits, and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.
See other Five-Minute Tours here.
Robert Ruello: Signal Spirits at the Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, Houston. Dates: November 8, 2024 – January 25, 2025.
Via the Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology:
Robert Ruello’s show at the Transart Foundation is aptly named; it explores the “spirits” and lives (or afterlives) of the “signals” that surround us everyday in the words, images, and symbols that make up our world. Ruello’s work explores the relationship between image and data, especially interrogating how they loop back on each other. His process begins with extracting the data contained in a digital image into the form of a bitmap, which he then manipulates – both digitally and physically – to bring forth new images or “glyphs” that can capture a portion of the information in and behind his original image. Using multiple layers of translucent colors, Ruello builds up his paintings, echoing the additive (and sometimes obscuring) process by which information moves through our digital world.
In Signal Spirits, Ruello presents both finished work and pieces which echo the different stages of his process, providing a glimpse into how his final paintings take shape and pointing towards the multilayered nature of his work and the stories that inspire it. With this exhibition, he aims to inspire viewers to do their own research, and to think more deeply and critically about the presence and influence of data in everyday life.
