Ruth Erdt
The Naked House

Ruth Erdt senses are heightened in the darkness of the room where she relinquishes control of the image, tracing an object with the braille touch skill to create each ambiguous form. In The Naked House, Erdt employs traditional techniques to build each photogram where shadows replace reflections in the process of production. Enticing the viewer to enter the image through the allure of absence and its denotation of a physical presence.

The process behind each image is integral to Erdt’s photographic approach. Her entire oeuvre focuses on a thematic structure that shifts and emerges through time. In The Naken House, portraits, objects and elements of the natural world coexist under the same roof, yet their true identity and relationship are hidden in darkness, calling upon what Charlotte Cotton has described in The Photograph as Contemporary Art as Edrt’s conscious paring down of detail, that leads to a universal and symbolic reading of the central themes.