Anna Ruth's practice moves fluidly between painting, sound, and installation. Rooted in emotion and transformation, her work explores the human condition through dreamlike, symbolic imagery and immersive environments.
Her strong connection to nature continues to shape her artistic approach. The use of natural pigments creates muted, earthy tones that reflect a world of quiet growth and environmental sensitivity. A key element in Ruth’s technique is the use of wet glazing and iron oxide (rust), suggestive of earthiness, decay, and transformation. These materials evoke both physical breakdown and symbolic renewal, a tentative balance that allows her paintings to exist outside of any fixed historical moment. They feel timeless, perennial, untethered to a specific era. For Ruth, this process is not only technical but deeply personal.
At the heart of her practice lies a reflection on how human society evolves and seeks to understand its existence. Her paintings shift between figuration and abstraction, shaped by a scenographic approach that creates a sense of atmosphere and narrative. In recent years, Ruth moved away from her darker, heavier works and began questioning the kind of world she wanted to be around. This led her to incorporate symbolism in her artworks, often extracted from personal memory.
Frequently depicting recurring elements such as pearls, symbols of natural beauty that, for Ruth, carry a deeper layer of allusive meaning. Night butterflies and bugs, fragile creatures that many people fear, are rendered tentatively with care and detail, highlighting their often-overlooked beauty. Snails and shells trace back to her childhood, when a moment of accidental harm sparked a lasting sensitivity toward all living beings. Her use of symbols is intuitive and evolving, with motifs transforming, overlapping and melding constantly over time. Throughout her practice, Ruth constructs visual stories built from personal symbols, fragments of mythology, social realities, and sensorial memory. These narratives evade fixed meanings, instead fabricating open emotional spaces where viewers are invited to feel, wonder, and reflect.
Anna Ruth (b. 1994, Melník, CZ) lives and works in Prague (CZ). She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (CZ) in 2022. Ruth will present a solo exhibition of new works at GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) in 2026.
Selected exhibitions include Fading Moon, Rising Light, STEINHAUSER Gallery, Bratislava (SK); Innesto 1, Fertile & The Address Gallery, Brescia (IT); Black Bile and Sunflowers, The Address Gallery, Brescia (IT) in 2025; Spinning Shadows, Weaving Light, BOLD Gallery, Prague (CZ); Enchanted Gardens, IRL Gallery, New York, NY (US); Thicket, Gaa Gallery, New York, NY (US); In Other Words, DOTS, Leipzig (DE) in 2024; Elegy of Myrrh, Karpuchina Gallery, Prague (CZ); Cozy Void, Zaazrak | Dornych, Brno, Prague (CZ) in 2023.