Play again! Let’s go again!. Situated between the video games of the ‘70s and the last Final Fantasy  episode, there is something of the role-play story in Ruth Gómez’ mural in which we play the part of warriors. Inspired by the Belleville area in Paris, and its urban frescoes, the Spray animated film is presented as graffiti, painted progressively throughout the simulation of a video game. Designed at first to be projected  onto  the  façade of a building of the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the film portrays a strong desire to integrate video images into urban life. Ruth Gómez infuses a poetic look at the urban space at a time when advertising boards and commercial screens are multiplying.

© Ruth Gómez

Spray reveals a controlled chaos of the little cares of human life. The animated wall produces  a container of images where multiple stories intimate our feelings and moods. The video combines characters and scenes from the artist’s previous animated films with real people, animals and graffiti. Sexy lips  bombarded  by a hovering Space Invader carry the words: I LOVE YOU.

The famous alien from Space Invaders controls and activates short scenes mixing figures, symbols, quotes, memories and fragments of everyday life. He manipulates his machinery like a puppeteer would make a zebra gallop, a giraffe, a flamingo, a marmoset, pretty ladies, one of whom is doing her nails, a man with traces of lipstick on his neck, a polar bear, a pelican, a marmot, a catfish, a penguin, a frog, a kiss, a biker playing hula hoop while his shadow does as it pleases…

Lively and encouraging, Ruth  Gómez still wants to believe, despite the recession, despite consumerism, despite the prevailing materialist society, all of which leave so little  space for dreams and poetry. The hardness of her past videos gives way to a positive and enthusiastic statement.Let’s play!. (Richard Neyroud / 2012).

Ruth Gomez’s work is sensitive to quotidian scenes and is close in time. She proposes animated stories that reflect, on one hand about human nature, and on the other about forms of evasion through fantasy. It is an extension of her own experience that could be ours, resulting sometimes in shared projections where reality and fiction intertwine.
Her images – characterized by dynamism and her personal use of color – are influenced by classical drawing, pop art and Japanese anime. At the same time, they are the result of a complex network of lines and points that bring together her adapted digital media to pictorial qualities.

Source: Ruth Gómez

Title: Starting Over
Place: Gallery Mário Sequeira
City: Braga
Country: Portugal
Date: 9 march -31 may 2013