Sterling Ruby’s “Atropa” Is a Quiet But Profound Reflection on Entropy

American artist Sterling Ruby has long engaged not only with the chaotic condition of our human present but also, more broadly, with that primordial chaos from which everything originates. His work engages with entropy, expressed both through physical and organic decay and as a social, psychological and institutional condition. Ruby has consistently embraced abrasion, erosion and chance in his artmaking, allowing images and forms to emerge through processes that follow or evoke the organic evolution of matter itself.