Aloft Afloat: Mobile Sculpture

Artist Biography

Ruth Kneass is from a San Francisco family that built handmade wood boats for over 100 years, beginning in the 1850s. Speaking of her life and work she states: 

 “Both my family's business and my artist mother had a great influence on me and my becoming a working artist. As a cross-disciplinary artist my work takes on many forms: mobile sculptures, interactive site-specific installations, furniture, lighting, textile design, ceramics, videography and painting. Using a myriad of mediums - driftwood, marble, basalt, clay, steel, paper, bamboo, rope, textiles - each work reveals my fascination with the heavenly bodies and nature’s sublime forms. I truly see opportunity everywhere, from the ocean to the desert and onto the universe. I am best known as a sculptor. 
Engineering mobiles that are measured in inches or yards, from driftwood or marble or steel, never grows old for me. It engages so many of my passions: model making, composing, scaling, carving and balancing. And the subsequent phase of capturing the kinetic essence through the lens of photography and videography is also fascinating. These meticulously designed sculptures weightlessly glide and orbit, moving in patterns that are never exactly the same, all the while casting graphic shadows.

In my practice I seek to ignite people’s imaginations, create meaningful engagement and rejoice in the wonder and beauty in the far out and the familiar.”