Ruth Miemczyk
“Painting is for me a visual language… I don’t attempt to depict the world or its events but rather to touch on a common resonance”
- Ruth Miemczyk
Charity: Médecins Sans Frontières
Ruth Miemczyk is an English-Polish artist born in Barnsley, Yorkshire. After studying painting at Barnsley School of Arts and Crafts, Central School of Art and Design and Goldsmiths College, Miemczyk has worked as a painter and teacher for over 50 years and exhibited widely across Europe. She currently lives and works from Scarborough.
In recent years, Miemczyk has renewed her connections in Poland participating in residencies and group shows, as well as presenting major solo including the Poleski Osrodek Sztuki in Lodz and Dwor Karwacjanow in Gorlice. Her works hang in several individual and corporate collections.
Miemczyk views painting as a visual language with colour, shape, space and scale being the methods to communicate the process and gestural act of painting. Certain shapes and gestures recur in Miemczyk’s work; notably the geometric shapes of diamonds, circles, squares and triangles. Although her work is abstract, the viewer may be drawn to look for associative elements and it’s certainly possible to see how the paintings relate to landscape or architectural structure of spaces. That’s not to say that the paintings are ‘about’ landscape or architecture, or even a specific place or event.
In the artist’s own words, “I recognise that I am influenced by the world around me and it is certainly possible to see how they relate to landscape, architectural structures and spaces .That is not to say that it is about any of those things. I aim to create a sense of clarity, without destroying the delicate balance that allows for ambiguity and expansiveness.”
Education
Goldsmiths College, London
Central School of Art & Design, London
Barnsley School of Art & Crafts
Select Solo Exhibitions
2015 | Crescent Arts, Scarborough
2008 | Maude Road House Exhibition, London
2006 | Cannon Hall Museum, Barnsley
2006 | Poleski Osrodek Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
2005 | Camelford Gallery, Cornwall
2003 | Dwor Karwacjanow, Gorlice, Poland
2001 | Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, Devon
1999 | North Cornwall Gallery & Museum
1998 | The Plough Arts Centre, Devon
1991 | Blackboy Gallery, West Wycombe
1983 | Maya Gallery, Marlow-on-Thames
1982-90 | 10 solo shows with Art in Hospitals scheme, including:
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
Leicester Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh
Select Group Exhibitions
2015 | Mono, Woodend, and Magnitude, Old Parcels Office, Scarborough
2013 | Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
2013 | According to McGee, York Dwor Karwacjanow, Gorlice, Poland
2012 | Royal Hall, Harrogate [ North Yorkshire Open Studios] Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby [NYOS]
2011 | Scarborough Art Gallery [East Coast Open]
2011| Dwor Karwacjanow, Gorlice, Poland
2011| Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
2007 | International Salon, Presove, Slovakia
2007 | Gothic House, Charlbury, Oxfordshire
2004 | Worlds End Gallery, Chelsea, London
2004 | Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, Devon
2003 | Sarah Wiseman Gallery, Oxford
2003 | Wallace Arts Agency, Falmouth
2002 | Queens Town Road Gallery, Battersea, London
2002 | Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton, Devon
2001 | Maltby Contemporary Art, Winchester
1994 | Castelnuovo Arts Festival, Tuscany
1992-94 | Art in Milton Keynes [various venues]
1993 | Bath International Art Fair
1992 | Oxford Art Group [invited artist] High Wycombe Museum, Bucks
1986-88 | Cookham Arts Festival, Berks