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Brie Ruais is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York, ^[1] working in large “multi-faceted” ceramic sculptures, ^[2] performance, ^[1] photography,^{[ citation needed]} video, ^[3] and site-specific installation. ^[1]

Ruais’ work is a process-oriented, performative, ^[4] body-conscious strain of feminist sculpture ^[5] and addresses themes such as the environment, ^[1] eco-feminism, ^[6] feminist theory, ^[7] and embodiment. ^[8] Her work falls in the lineage of body-based conceptual artists Janine Antoni, ^[5] Bruce Nauman, Lynda Benglis, and Eleanor Antin; ^[9] artists whose work engages with the land such as Michelle Stuart, ^[4] Ana Mendieta, ^{[4] [2]} and Richard Long; ^[4] as well as the gestural athleticism of action painting ^[9] and Richard Serra’s lead performances. ^[3] Her work has also been compared to artists whose work is influenced by their natural surroundings like Georgia O’Keefe and Agnes Martin. ^[2]

Ruais was born in 1982 in Southern California. ^[6] She received her BS in Studio Art from New York University Steinhardt School in 2004. ^[10] She received her MFA from the School of the Arts at Columbia University in 2011, where she studied with Jon Kessler. ^{[10] [11]}

Ruais’s abstract ceramic sculptures ^[1] retain both the primordial, earthen origins of clay ^[12] as well as the physical and psychological imprint of their maker. ^[8] Working on the floor, ^[6] Ruais begins her work with a predetermined set of actions ^[7] and an amount of clay that often equals her own bodyweight. ^[13] The titles of her work reference the gestures she performs, like “spreading out from center,” “compressing,” “pushing landscape,”  and “making space from the inside.” ^[14] Her process is highly physical and it is performed quickly from beginning to end, utilizing her entire body. ^[6] She is described as kicking, spreading, scraping, and skimming, ^[6] cinching, ramming, and shoving the material across the floor or up a wall. ^[12] The resulting form is then cut into segments, glazed, fired, and hung on the wall. ^[5] The finished sculpture is embedded with the marks of this process: “whorled and rutted from fingers, elbows and boot treads”. ^[5]  The sculptures are topographical ^[12] documents of the performance that formed them. ^[5]  Ruais’ work explores both the limits of the body ^[5] and the material. ^[15]

Ruais is known for her circular wall works ^[15] that measure on average 80 inches (2 meters) in diameter. ^[16] The sculptures are made on the floor and then hung vertically on the wall. ^[17] They resemble clocks, starbursts, ^[3] ray-like forms, punctures, and wounds. ^[8] In Scraped Away from Center, 130lbs (Night) (2018), for example, the pigmented stoneware extends outward from the center, where Ruais knelt to make it, into a circular form with jagged edges. ^[16]

Brie Ruais’ work is included in Phaidon’s Vitamin C: Clay + Ceramic, a global survey of 100 of today's most important clay and ceramic artists, chosen by leading art world professionals, published in 2017. ^{[6] [18]}

• 2021 Movement on the Edge of the Land, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston, TX ^{[1] [2] [19]}
• 2021 Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA ^{[14] [20]}
• 2021 This is America, Kunstraum Potsdam, Berlin, Germany ^{[21] [22]}
• 2021 This Earth: Notes and Observations From Montello Foundation Artists, The Southern Utah Museum of Art, Cedar City, UT ^{[14] [23]}
• 2020 Formed and Fired: Contemporary American Ceramics, The Anderson Collection, Stanford University, Stanford, CA ^{[14] [24]}
• 2020 The Body, The Object, The Other, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA ^{[14] [25]}
• 2020 Afterimages, Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, Québec, Canada ^{[26] [27] [28]}
• 2019 Earth Piece, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY ^{[14] [29]}
• 2019 America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas ^{[14] [30] [31]}
• 2019 Intimate Immensity, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA ^{[14] [32]}
• 2019 The Form Will Find its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction, The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN ^[33]
• 2017 New Ruins, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC ^{[34] [35]}
• 2015 Crafted: Objects in Flux, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA ^{[14] [36]}
• 2015 The Familiar and the Indefinable in Clay: The Scripps 71st Ceramic Annual, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont, CA ^[37]
• 2014 EAF14 Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY ^{[38] [39]}
• 2013 Vessels, The Horticulture Society of New York, New York, NY ^{[40] [41]}
• 2011 BYTS Bosch Young Talent Show, Stedelijk Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands ^[42]

• 2021 Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant, First Place ^{[43] [44]}
• 2018 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant ^{[43] [45]}
• 2017 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, NY, NY ^{[43] [46]}
• 2017 Montello Foundation Residency, Montello, Nevada ^{[47] [48] [49]}
• 2016 Dieu Donne, Workspace Program Residency, NY, NY ^[50]

Ruais' work is in the public collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, ^{[51] [52]} Matamoros Art In Embassies Collection, Mexico, ^{[43] [53]} Burger Collection, Hong Kong, ^{[2] [16] [54]} Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH, ^[55] and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. ^[20]

• Albertz Benda
• Night Gallery
• Cooper Cole
• Brie Ruais