EMPTY SEATS: Meet the Artist - Ruth Kelly-Koebel

ABOUT THE ARTIST

I am a multidisciplinary artist based in the City of Kawartha Lakes, working across multimedia installation, painting, and textiles. My practice explores a love for bright, bold colours, dynamic patterns, and engaging textures. I often work with recycled and found materials, incorporating sewing techniques to transform everyday objects into something unexpected. Through this transformation, I invite viewers to experience a sensory journey, where touch and texture are central to the work. I aim to create pieces that evoke a sense of joy, relaxation, and flow, allowing both myself and viewers to enter a space of creative freedom. My art is driven by a desire to think outside the box, to push boundaries, and to explore new ways of repurposing materials, ensuring that functional objects never return to their original form. Through abstraction and innovation, I strive to create unique, immersive experiences that challenge and delight.

EXHIBITION STATEMENT

This series of posters responds to the withdrawal of a female candidate from a municipal political race after experiencing harassment. Drawing on the visual language of protest graphics, it uses bold typography and symbolic imagery to explore gender, power, public service, and civic participation. Through themes of protection, solidarity, sacrifice, and free expression, the series calls for a political culture where women can lead without intimidation, and where public service is grounded in fairness, dignity, and collective voice.