Ruby Sky Stiler was born in 1979 in Portland, Maine, and lives and works in New York City. Her monochromatic sculptures and reliefs draw upon a wide range of cultural references, evoking the forms of classical antiquities and the fractured aesthetic of Cubist painting and collage. Rather than using marble, stone, or ceramic, Stiler works with foam core, acrylic resin, plaster, and discarded elements from her studio, incorporating both the monumental and the cast-off and exploring questions of authenticity, authority, value, and taste. She uses portraiture to represent women in an empowered position and update archetypes for both genders:

“I’m interested in playing with —or correcting— our expectations around conventional gender stereotypes. For example, I was trying (and failing) to represent men in my work forever. I wasn’t able to find the right shapes. The forms were clunky and boring. Once I started to show men with their children, suddenly they became dynamic, emotional, and beautiful.”

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