John Ruppert
"Such juxtapositions between the industrial and the natural are essential to Ruppert's practice, with harmonious compositions reconciling machine-made materials and the mutability of organic forms.. Though his works have been characterized as Zen-like - indeed many of his sculptures resemble visual koans - they feel more Taoist in spirit rather than polar opposites that interact within a larger dynamic system. And his understanding of energy - whether in natural phenomena or in art - is similar to Chi, the Taoist term for the life force underlying the universe. Just as Taoism doesn't consider the void empty, Ruppert's theatrical installations transform space into a living stage where energy engages sculpture."
— Sarah Tanguy, Art Historian, Washington, D.C., Sculpture Magazine, September 2012, Vol. 31, No.7
John Ruppert, Shift - Maine, 2017, igneous rock and cast bronze, 9 x 15 x 12 inches
John Ruppert is an American sculptor and interdisciplinary artist born in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1951, who lives and works in Baltimore. For more than four decades, Ruppert has worked with cast metals, manufactured materials, mixed media, video, digital 3D printing, and digital composite photography. His practice explores the meeting point between natural phenomena and human decision-making, often bringing industrial materials into dialogue with organic forms, environmental systems, and the changing conditions of the landscape. Ruppert received his MFA from the School for American Craftsman at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1977. He is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has been on the faculty since 1987. He has received awards including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award and Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist grants.