Hanna Ruminski, Canadian artist, expresses herself in two different subject matters. One is expressionist images balancing between abstraction and figuration with a strong interest in the physicality of the painting; textures, layers of paint, applied and scraped, letters, writing, markings, all play an important role in her artist language.

The second style she practices is representational, focusing on creating opulent yet sometimes melancholic ancestral interiors with architectural details and antique furnishings.

Ruminski’s two styles collide in a world where she finds perfection in the imperfection.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As an artist with a long career, my focus has always been letting my inner strength and intuition play a leading role in creating my art. My abstract paintings have evolved throughout the years, meandering through different stages. Spontaneity, preserving accidentals, bold moves, rich texture and painterly technique, characterize my earlier works. Infatuation with large size canvases, using buckets of household paints, big brushes and scrappers were the base of my art making.

In the midst of my career, I was inspired by living in an urban environment with its motives, energy and spontaneity. Layers of textures and images, scribbles, letters, graffiti-like markings, were present in my paintings. As much as my courage allowed me, I let the paintings lead me, through the ups and downs of the process of creation. Layers are an important character of every big city. Peeling them off with intuition and emotion was the sense of my art. Finding beauty in imperfection and distressed elements, peeling paint, sublayers revealed by time, all fuelled my imagination. Looking at my children’s drawings, their pureness, scribbles describing their world, their joy and playfulness, inspired me.

The painting “Road” started my “letters” phase. Through using letters and hand writing as a form of expression, I was responding to the dominant role of social media and communication via technology that was becoming so prominent in our society. Hand writing, so special and distinctive to every human, was replaced by a technological language, making our communication less meaningful.

At one point my urban landscapes became influenced by nature’s simple horizontal compositions and textures found in vegetation. The gestures were pronounced and the brush strokes bold. Most of my paintings are on square size canvases. The size works very well with my composition and contemporary feel. Acrylics, household paints, crayons, pastels, charcoal, commercial wall compound are all part of mixed media used by me regularly. Besides inspirations mentioned, I also look into my “memory pockets” for images, feelings and impressions, as well as photographs stored there throughout the years. My art is a collaboration between all those elements and my inner world as a woman with many roles in life.

On the other spectrum of my artistic practice is my passion for ancestral interiors, antiques and history, embedded in each piece of furniture and object of art. I pay my deep respect to this by creating these interiors that seem opulent and grand but simultaneously, the passing time makes them faded and vulnerable, and not so glamorous anymore; their materialistic glory to never return nor last.

I feel fulfilled being able to paint two completely different subject matters. It gives me a chance to be challenged both intellectually and emotionally. I feel tremendously lucky and am humbled by being able to share these experiences with others.