Nothing Is Separate By Ellen Rutt

The bold forms and striking colors of Rutt’s work usually take form in the patterns that she stitches across throw rugs and the murals she paints over walls. In her latest work, ‘Nothing Is Separate: A Collaboration With Nature’, these forms take a more three-dimensional form. Created as a part of Temple “I’m acknowledging my own contradictions and our collective moral flexibility” Children’s Artist Residency in Hilo, Hawaii, the project draws together Rutt’s practice with the majesty of the program’s island location. With costumes, painted wooden shapes and a photographer, Rutt’s work was created at several of the island’s most distinct natural locations. The incorporation of her physical form into the work was deliberate: “I’m acknowledging my own contradictions and our collective moral flexibility, how we are simultaneously celebrating the sacredness of the natural world, while also engaging in practices that knowingly or unknowingly contribute to its destruction.”