Ruby Chishti (b.1963, Jhang, Pakistan) has produced lyrical sculptures and installations over the last 20 years that investigate migration, Islamic myths, gender politics, and memory, as well as the universal themes of love, loss, and humanity. Chishti's art is characterized by haunting and enigmatic forms that explore the transformation of fabric from discarded mass-produced clothing into the reconstruction filaments of artistic imagination. "My exploration revolves around the melding of found garments and social memory, intimately engaging with 'fashion detritus' to spark conversations about the passage of time and collective experiences of love, loss and being human. I dismantle unknown people's clothing, re-figure, and hand-sew layers creating evocative structures that prompt reflections on our emotional and physical connections to architecture, reminiscent of the sedimentation of history and the geological phenomena of ‘deep time' documented in layers of rocks deposited over billions of years.” - Ruby Chishti
She is primarily a representational sculptor and was formally educated at the National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan. Chishti has held residencies internationally, and received fellowships and awards including the recent VSC/Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship. Her installations, sculptures, and site-specific works exhibited at Asia Society Museum NY, Queens Museum, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India, Arco Madrid, Art Hong Kong, India Art fair, and The Armory Show NYC, to name a few. Chishti’s work has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, and books, including Unveiling the Visible by Salima Hashmi, Memory-Metaphor-Mutations by Salima Hashmi and Yashodhra Dalmia, and The Eye Still Seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art by Salima Hashmi & Matand Khosla.
The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.