Ruben Nusz, "Between Walls", 2015

Printed by Drew Peterson, Minneapolis

Twin Cities–based artist Ruben Nusz has garnered significant attention in recent years with his paintings and works on paper that are deeply influenced by color theory, optics, and art history. A painter of considerable depth and restraint, he deftly explores relationships between abstraction and representation by using often illusionistic, trompe l’oeil effects that comment on the process of painting itself and the malleable nature of reality. The edition Nusz has created as a benefit edition for the Walker is based on a recent body of paintings in which two distinct visual ideas—a primary component and a secondary composition—collide in a single work. The resulting imagery upends the viewer’s expected notions of composition, color, and likeness in ways both appealing and unsettling. Nusz’s work was featured in the Walker’s traveling exhibition Lifelike. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center and Minnesota Museum of American Art as well as numerous private collections. He is also a co-founder of Location Books, an independent publisher that provides contemporary artists opportunities to produce new work in book form. These publications have been widely collected by institutions such as the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.