Ruth Marten started her career as a
tattoo artist in the 1970s before working as an illustrator for a range
of publishers and magazines in the US. Her visual artwork has earned
well-deserved international recognition only in the last few years.


This
book is the second publication on the highly acclaimed New York artist
and presents Ruth Marten's most recent creations - 19 large-format works
on paper produced between autumn 2018 and summer 2019.


Marten
used photographs from the 19th and early 20th centuries as the basis for
these artworks. By overpainting the photos, she created literally
fantastic pictures that seem to allow the impossible to become possible.
Like the pioneers of surrealism, she developed a world between dream
and nightmare that is full of mystery, where inanimate objects suddenly
become alive and where new, unheard-of phenomena shake up our
established worldview. Her works abound in psychoanalytic enigmas that
have sprung from the depths of her artistic subconscious.


Text in English and German.