Stux Gallery is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of works by New York artist Kathy Ruttenberg, "Nature of the Beast: New Ceramic Sculptures". Following her inaugural show at Stux last year, Ruttenberg's new works continue to explore the interplay between consciousness, imagination and gender relations. This exhibition coincides with Charta's publication of her first major monograph.

Comparable to the works of Adriana Varejao, Arlene Shechet, Louise Bourgeois and Maurizio Cattelan, Ruttenberg's lush narratives are at once enchanting, idyllic and utterly devastating. Open-ended, stark ruminations on gender politics are decontextualized and reinstalled amidst foliage and creaturely beings. Men are proprietors of a wonderland women seem to be intruding, and love is torturous, ceremonial and decidedly omnipresent. It is difficult to determine whether the characters are humans masquerading as animals (or vice versa), or incidents of paused metamorphoses. Their nonchalant, lifeless poses are almost weightless, as if their bodies are simply well-primed, submissive theatres for bizarre scenarios of affection and violence painted on their outfits. Although formal and conservatively tailored, Ruttenberg's fashions expose rather than conceal. The intense passion that fires wet earth into terra cotta can be seen and genuinely felt.