Cindy Ruskin
Cindy Ruskin, featured Issue 54 and the Time Capsule exhibition, is an oil painter originally from South Africa, known for her vibrant, fairytale landscapes. She holds a BA in Art History from Harvard and has studied painting in San Francisco and New York City. Her work is showcased in the White Columns Curated Artist Registry.
Cindy’s work has been published in Create! Magazine, Art Seen Magazine, Women United ART, Photo Trouvé, Goddess Arts, among others.
Artist Statement
The first thing I do in the morning is read the news. When my anxiety reaches a breaking point, I race to my studio with no plan except to stop thinking and start painting.
This has become a daily practice. I work on paper so nothing I create is too precious, grabbing oil paints, acrylics, ink, pencils, and whatever else I find around me. I describe the works in this collection as inner landscapes — spiritual and emotional environments, inspired by a quote from the feminist filmmaker Agnes Varda, “If you open people up, you’ll find landscapes.”
I’m deeply thankful for the great solace painting gives me. When I paint, I’m able to let go of the outside world. I find myself painting tranquil, safe places — mostly meadows and big sky — with space to relax and reflect.
I feel a powerful impulse to paint in a way that is joyful and life-affirming. Even when the future of the world seems bleak, I know that making art will take me to another realm where I can daydream, believe in the impossible, and find humor, hope, and beauty.
About the work in the exhibition:
These paintings are a meditation on the pleasures and pressures of being a girl. My otherworldly heroines are sweet on the surface, complex underneath — figures of wonder and vulnerability caught somewhere between fairy tale and dream.
Looking back through a decade of work, I was struck by how often cakes, ice cream, candy, and pastries appear. These are not merely sugary subjects — they hold something deeper: nostalgia, longing, the fleeting pleasures of childhood.
I work in vivid color with a whimsical, humorous touch, painting a world that is at once celebratory and melancholy, where sweetness and sorrow are never far apart.
https://www.cindyruskin.com/
