Ruth Bloch's characters blend in with the environment in such a natural way that for a moment it is almost possible to mistake them for human beings, despite their egoless form.
There are no facial expressions or strong emotion that is particularly emphasized. A font as if marked with symbolic details of a human body. The head is not emphasized more than the other parts of the body. The figures are long and thin, their movement is flexible, silent, you can feel that the soul of the artist standing behind them is dancing.
Even the couple, which is a main theme for Bloch, implies movement, mutual regard and emotional flow, very refined but lacking in drama. There is a lot of warmth and listening between them and there is romance.
Ruth Bloch with one of her sculptures
Bloch, who was born in the kibbutz, is a well-known sculptor there and a mother of four children. Her sculptures are displayed all over the world in galleries and parks, and in various exhibitions.
The family is commemorated many times and in different variations in her works, and she indeed proves herself to be continuing the artistic line started by her mother who sculpts in ceramics. Art has been an integral part of Bloch's life since childhood. She loved to paint and also sculpted in ceramics. From 1990 she started sculpting in bronze and opened up to the world art market.
The emphasis in Bloch's sculptures is on movement and swing. A kind of levitation. Nothing stands still, not the seated figures and not even the bronze and the material from which the sculptures are made. There is always a sense of continuity and dynamism, very peaceful, very harmonious, but forever flowing.
A circle and a soft line are the main motifs that shape the figures and the spaces between them.
The spaces themselves serve as a harmonious contrast that emphasizes and accentuates the lightness and airiness of the movement flowing through the sculptures. It is so beautiful to see the iron flex and stretch and become something so spiritual and emotional under the hands of the sculptor.
Bloch's outdoor sculptures blend in with nature in perfect harmony as if he sculpted them too. According to her, her characters speak of the inclusion of equality and harmony from a place of choice, of development, growth, emotional awareness, longing to be included. "It doesn't matter if it's a person, a tree or a stone," she says, "things are adapted to live in harmony. Even being still gives off the effect of a womb, of the ability to shelter in someone's shadow."
Among her characters there are those who play the violin and cello, which, by the way, resemble the shape of the characters. But the string instrument motif belongs to her musician and cellist father, Bloch chose to commemorate the family through her art.
For Bloch, harmony is so important and the value of every detail is important regardless of its size or role, they all play their part within the whole.
"The micro and the macro are equally equal. In my eyes, there is no hierarchy between parent and child, between person and person. The tree is no more a hero than the primrose, and a huge rock and a small pebble share the same qualities."
— Ruth Bloch
Bloch works with a variety of materials and the final product is cast in bronze, there is a series of sculptures that combine bronze and glass and here too the harmony is manifested when two materials so different emphasize and complement each other with great aesthetics. Ruth Bloch brings the organic side of the various materials to expression in bronze, she sculpts them so that they look exactly like the branches of a tree or like a plank or a rope but in fact everything is made of bronze.
The size of her outdoor sculptures sometimes reaches several meters, for example the sculpture "Fatherhood" in the park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is three meters in size and has a pleasant texture so that children can enter and crawl through its spaces.
Fusion, subtlety, emotion and movement are imprinted in the cold iron and give life to it.
