Ruth is an artist based in London and Devon, where she also runs a gallery, an art residency and teaches. She is interested in the relationship between humans and the material world: how we shape matter, write meaning into it, and are shaped by it. More recently Ruth’s work has centred around the miracle of existence itself.
Ruth completed her MA and BA in Art History at The Courtauld Institute of Art, graduating with a distinction in 2016 from her master’s course, titled ‘Flesh and Fabric: The Victorian and Edwardian Interior’. She then attended The Heatherley School of Fine Art for a two-year full time diploma in figurative painting. During her time there she won the yearly ‘Heatherley Prize’ and the ‘Worlds End Studios Prize’.
Since then she has been selected for numerous competitions and art residencies. Exhibitions include the ‘Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize Exhibition 2019’ at Piano Nobile and the ‘Royal Society of British Artists 2019 Exhibition’ at the Mall Galleries. Art residencies include the ‘CWND Artist Residency’ in Canary Warf and the artist residency ‘Continuum’ at Husk in Limehouse. Ruth was also resident artist at Battersea Power Station Phase 3, where she painted at the construction site each week from a crane. Most recently, Ruth has been awarded the Emerging Artist Bursary for Devon Open Studios in 2021.
As well as painting full-time, Ruth also teaches painting, lectures and writes, and runs Ruth Smith Gallery, which brought artists together to create new visual dialogues in public spaces in London, and now at its permanent location in the square of North Tawton where she also runs art residencies. More recently she has initiated and co-founded an artist collective called ‘Red Mud Arts‘ which brings artists from all disciplines together to socialise, support and co-create, and is in the process of pursuing venue opportunities for an arts hub.
Email: ruth.helen.smith@outlook.com
Phone: 07810 590 954
Instagram: ruth.helen.smith