(contact karen@davisortongallery.com for more information and sales)

In The Journey (El viaje), Claudia Ruiz-Gustafson pieces together a visual diary from her early years in Lima, Peru to her later experiences after arriving in this country with nothing but a suitcase. She constructs her diary’s pages using a wide range of photographic resources. These include old family snapshots, objects of sentimental value and scraps of her journals destroyed in a rage—which she credits for planting the seed to start the visual diary to preserve her memories.

With these elements, Ruiz-Gustafson remembers her family history from her idyllic childhood in Lima to the pivotal experiences that led to living in fear during the terrorist attacks by Sendero Luminoso and to her growing feelings of alienation from society and religion. In her diary entries of more recent times, the artist adds symbolic objects and photographs of women at different ages to represent her ongoing journey, reflect on her fears and dreams, and portray her resilience.

Digital C prints, 12″x12″, editions of 10, $200

See Bio below

Bio:  

Claudia Ruiz-Gustafson is a Massachusetts-based photographer who grew up in Lima, Peru. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the New England area, among them the Griffin Museum of Photography, Danforth Art Museum, Sohn Fine Art Gallery, U-Forge Gallery, Fountain Street Gallery, the Providence Center for Photographic Arts, and the Cambridge Art Association Galleries. In Lima, she worked as a freelance photographer for a local feminist magazine and a regional newspaper.  In 2005, she started her photography business in the Boston area.