Opening today at Sprüth Magers New York, Sterling Ruby unveils Atropa (January 30th–March 28th, 2026), a major solo presentation of entirely new works. The Sterling Ruby exhibition coincides with Master Drawings New York and reaffirms the artist’s sustained engagement with the tensions of the contemporary moment through material, gesture, and process.
Sterling Ruby exhibition: concept and framework
Titled after the genus Atropa, which includes the deadly nightshade plant and is also a reference to Atropos, the Greek Fate who cuts the thread of life, the exhibition is built around paradox. Throughout the show, life and death, destruction and restoration, and beauty and violence coexist, forming a meditation on mortality, impermanence, and the fragile balance inherent in nature and society.
Exhibition highlights
The Sterling Ruby exhibition brings together graphite drawings, pen-and-ink studies, expressive watercolor collages, and a new bronze sculptural series. The graphite works (2025) extend a drawing practice Ruby began three decades ago, defined by palimpsestic surfaces where frenetic mark-making and erasure give rise to botanical forms emerging from visual turbulence. Pen-and-ink drawings (2024–25) heighten this intensity, their rapid, obsessive lines blurring the boundary between observation and imagination.
Watercolor collages from the ongoing DRFTRS series (2013–present) introduce fragmented photographic elements drifting through atmospheric washes, often anchored by fallen trees that suggest stasis rather than growth. Two new subseries expand this inquiry: SPLITTING (2025), which evokes psychological polarization through distorted monochrome imagery, and works such as Hippy and Kissing Hippies (2025), where stained faces and floral wreaths recall countercultural symbolism.
As you prepare for this art show, we invite you to read our conversation with Sterling Ruby, in which he discusses artistic freedom, the political tensions inherent in abstraction and the increasingly blurred boundaries between contemporary art and design.
