John Ruppert

Over the past 40 years, John Ruppert has been working in cast metals; manufactured materials such as chain-link fabric; mixed media; and more recently, video, digital 3D printing and digital composite photography - all in response to where natural order and human decision-making meet, and the paradoxes that lie between. His work stems from a long tradition of artists who have been inspired by the grand and sublime beauty of the land and humankind’s relationship to it, from the ancient Chinese poets and artists of Tao to the 19th century American landscape painters and, more recently, to artists working directly in the landscape.

His interest in natural phenomena - both in source and in the way that he works - is what drives his creative practice.

Ruppert’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums, sculpture parks and galleries in the United States. These include Grounds for Sculpture (NJ), Omi International Sculpture Park (NY), Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (NC), Kreeger Museum (DC), Katonah Art Museum (NY), 2010 Miami Sculpture Biennale (FL), Katzen Art Center (DC), and the Baltimore Museum of Art. His work was included in Material Terrain, a major traveling exhibition that was commissioned by and debuted at Laumeier international Sculpture Park, St Louis (MO), and traveled to eight museums across the country. He had a one-person exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, which traveled to Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. His work was included in Urban Garden, an outdoor sculpture installation at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston (MA), organized DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Last winter he curated and designed an survey exhibition of his work LAB: Empirical Evidence at The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC.

Internationally, Ruppert was selected to represent the United States at the inaugural exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Tallinn, Estonia. He has also been included in exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Wenzhou, China; Latvia; Finland; and Poland.

Ruppert has been commissioned to create major sculptural installations for the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the 2012 West Lake International Exhibition in Hangzhou, China, and more recently at Harbor Point in Baltimore. Reviews of his work have been published in Art in America, New Art Examiner, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and the New York Times with feature articles in Art China and most recently Sculpture magazine.

He has been invited to participate in numerous artist residency programs, including Iceland; Aeolian Islands off of Sicily; Marseille, France; Salem Art Works and Cary Hill Sculpture Park, NY; and as a Distinguished Visitor at Washington College as part of their Sandbox initiative. Most recently he participated in the Arctic Circle Residency this past June.

In addition, Ruppert has received numerous awards including five Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist grants, the Mary Sawyers Baker Award, which included an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and most recently, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.

John Ruppert is a full Professor and former Chair of the Department of Art, at the University of Maryland, College Park, and has been on their faculty since 1987. He received his MFA from the School for American Craftsman, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, in 1977.