1708 Gallery is pleased to welcome Ricardo Ruiz for a mini winter residency. Come by for his open studio time during RVA First Fridays on January 5th, 2018, from 5pm to 9pm. 

Ricardo Vicente Jose Ruiz maintains a multi disciplinary practice rooted in drawing that engages oral traditions grounded in curanderismo, Mexican faith healing. Through storytelling and superstition, Ricardo reflects on the everyday in a mode that accesses past, present, and future. Works, physical gestures via the artists body, and sound initiate a conversation about how healing manifest itself in the 21th century. Images explore metaphysical spaces of mythic figures and interactions grounded in personal memoir, ritual, and prose. Ruiz's work intends to expand on the traumas of the difficult histories of marginalized groups within North America but provide a point of healing through spiritual reconciliation and mediation in its discussion.