“Pony Diptych”

"Toys For Girls"

 
The Department of Art at Columbia College announces the opening of the exhibition House Tales: Recent Work by Kristi Ryba. Ryba’s works will be on exhibit in the Goodall Gallery in the R. Wright Spears Music-Art Center at Columbia College through November 22, 2008.
 
Kristi Ryba makes paintings, prints, books and stop motion animations using dolls and related objects, and most recently family photos. Her work examines cultural roles, relationships and common experiences in which she explores the traditional roles of women, principally motherhood and the domestic sphere. Ryba received her BA from the College of Charleston and her MFA from Vermont College. She also studied Studio Camnitzer/Printmaking Workshop in Lucca, Italy, and held a residency at the Vermont Studio School.
 
Since 1990, Ryba’s work has toured the Southeast, most recently in exhibitions with Corrigan Gallery in Charleston, S.C., and at SOHO20 in New York.
 
In 2002 Ryba began making stop-motion video animations and has shown them locally as well as the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery, Tennessee State University in Nashville; at Silo Gallery in New York; Saltworks and Get This! galleries in Atlanta, Georgia; Queer as Film Festival at Boise State University in Idaho; Forum Gallery at Cranbrook in Michigan; the Toaster Film Festival and Indie Grits Film Festival in Columbia, S.C.; Women’s Caucus for Art International Video Shorts Festival at Barnard College, New York.; Sarai Media Lab in New Delhi, India; Project Space, Portland, Oregon; and Eye Am Woman Behind the Lens at Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) Channel 34 in New York.
 
About her own work, Ryba says “My interests and concerns revolve around the concept of women’s roles---home, family and the domestic sphere. My project is to explore and understand how the gendered messages and myths about these roles are embedded in our unconscious. The work is comprised of many types of dolls and related objects such as dollhouses and furniture, and more recently, manipulated family photos, which serve as the iconography through which I examine cultural roles, relationships and common experiences related to domesticity. The intention is to inspect, consider and question the traditional role of women in all its forms: wife, mother, caretaker, and home keeper. Although no longer in the throes of daily mothering, my life is rooted in family issues and household concerns, and these experiences shape the art making. My intent is to question the embedded attitudes, opinions and beliefs regarding the value of woman’s work.”
 
For additional information, call 803.786.3088.  Gallery Hours: Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m.
 
Goodall Gallery
The Department of Art
R. Wright Spears Music Art Center
Columbia College
1301 Columbia College Drive
Columbia, SC 29203