Kathy ruttenberg,
In Sync and Dandelion

In Sync

Kathy Ruttenberg's anthropomorphic creatures stride in sync amidst the natural fauna of the Catskills, at the future site of the Catskill Art Space outdoor sculpture garden. Nestled beside the Willowemoc Creek, the tree-lady and deer-man embody personal character while celebrating biodiversity—both of the surrounding landscape and of our wider community. Rooted in an eco-feminist sensibility, Ruttenberg's autobiographical tree-lady draws an intimate kinship between the female form and the natural world, positioning womanhood not as separate from nature but as inseparable from it. The deer-man, a recurring figure in the artist's narrative-driven work, has evolved into a partner moving in tandem with the tree figure as they emerge from the woodland.

Dandelion

The dandelion is among the most recognizable plants in the world, ubiquitous and resilient, growing wherever it finds purchase. Long dismissed as a weed, it has more recently found favor among gourmets as a foraged field green, its bitter leaves prized in salads and sautés. Karthy Ruttenberg has long been drawn to the dandelion's form across its various life stages: the tight golden bloom, the feathery seed head, the architecture of dispersal. Installed on the rear façade of Catskill Art Space, her laser-cut stainless-steel rendering memorializes this humble plant at monumental scale. While the dandelion's symbolic resonance, persistence, transformation, the passage of time captured in a single breath scattering seeds, is not lost on the artist, her intent here is more direct: simply to render a dandelion, in its essential and elemental form.

About the Artist

Kathy Ruttenberg (b. 1957, Chicago, IL) is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, painting, and animation. Emerging from New York's early 1980s East Village art scene, her allegorical paintings contributed to the vitality of new figurative expressionism. Over the last four decades, her work has gradually shifted from painting toward sculpture. Oscillating between intimate and monumental scales, she uses ceramic, bronze, and light to explore themes of ecofeminism, animal liberation, and sexuality. Ruttenberg lives and works in upstate New York.