Ruth Wallen is a multi-media artist and writer whose work is dedicated to encouraging dialogue around ecological and social justice. After working as an environmental scientist, she turned to art to pose questions beyond disciplinary boundaries, address values informing environmental policy, and contribute to the developing field of ecological art.  She creates interactive installations, nature walks, web sites, artist books and performative lectures. Her critical writing addresses ecological art and race, gender and visual culture. Solo exhibitions include Bewaerschole in the Netherlands, Franklin Furnace and CEPA in New York, New Langton Arts in San Francisco, and numerous venues in southern California.  She has been represented in numerous national and international group exhibitions ranging from Emergence: Ecoart Actions and the Climate Crisis in Chongqing, China, and Virgin Territory, at the Long Beach Museum of Art, to Weather Report: Art and Climate Change, curated by Lucy Lippard for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Web site hosts have included the California Museum of Photography and the Exploratorium, where her work is currently on view. Active in the border region she was a founding member of the multinational artist collective Las Comadres, past president of the Binational Association for Schools of Communication in the Californias and a Fulbright Lecturer at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Tijuana. Currently she is core faculty for the MFAIA in Interdisciplinary Arts program at Goddard College.

I have identified as an ecological artist for most of my adult life….

Ecological art, or ecoart to use the abbreviated term, appeals to both heart and mind, draws on broad interdisciplinary knowledge based on an embodied sense of the artist in a larger web of interconnected relationships. Ecological art is much more than a traditional painting, photograph, or sculpture of the natural landscape. While such works may be visually pleasing, they are generally based on sublime, awe inspiring or picturesque, preconceived views of the natural world. Ecological art, in contrast, is grounded in an ecological ethic and systems theory, addressing the web of interrelationships between the physical, biological, cultural, political and historical aspects of ecosystems.

Asking probing questions, fashioning potent metaphors, identifying patterns, weaving stories, offering restoration and remediation, inventively using renewable materials, and re-envisioning systems, ecological artists inspire, advocate and innovate, revealing and/or enhancing ecological relationships while modeling ecological values. Ecological art inspires caring and respect for the world in which we live, stimulates dialogue, sparks imagination, and contributes to the socio-cultural transformations whereby the diversity of life forms found on earth may heal and flourish.

Selected Recent Podcasts/Talka:
“Walking with Sequoias” talk for Shambhala Earth Salon April 9, 2023
WEAD Magazine Series #2 “The Art of Empathy: A Conversation with Dominique Mazeaud, Ruth Wallen and Jane Chin Anderson,” December 2022
“Walking with Oaks,” Zen Peacemakers, May 2022

Recent Exhibitions and Awards:

2023 “Learning to Think Like a Forest,” (solo exhibition, residency, outdoor sculpture) Bewaerschole, Burgh-Haamstede, Netherlands
2023          “Emergence: Ecoart Actions on the Climate Crises,” Yuan Art Museum, Chongqing, China
2023                   “Good Natured,” San Diego Public Library Art Gallery, San Diego, Ca.              
2023 “Climate Reckoning,” Hyde Gallery, Grossmont College, El Cajon, Ca.
2023 “Zombie Forest,” Intersect Palm Springs, Palm Springs, Ca.
2023 “A Map Project,” City Gallery, San Diego City College, San Diego, Ca.
2022 “Artist-in-Residence,” Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2022 “Portals,” Feminist Image Group, Phels Gallery, Carlsbad, Ca.
2022 “Eco-Art Work: 11 Artists from 8 Countries,” Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, Ca.
2022 “Frederick P. Lenz Residential Fellowship in Buddhism and American Culture and Values,” from Naropa University, Boulder, Co.
2021 “SD Practice: Works Acquired by the City of San Diego,” San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, Ca.
2021 “Making Time, What Athenaeum Artists Create in Quarantine ,” Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, La Jolla, Ca.
2020 “Our Fragile Planet,” Fallbrook Branch Library, Fallbrook, Ca.
2020 ‘‘Art Auction Exhibition,” Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, Ca.
2020 “Endangered: Exploring California’s Changing Ecosystems,” California Center for the Arts, Escondido Museum, Escondido Ca.
2019                      “Franklin Furnace: Performance is Public,” The Brooklyn Public Library, New York, NY.
2019                      “Two Views of the Watershed,” Solo Exhibition,” Elfin Forest Visitor Center, Escondido, Ca.
2018                      “Remember the Trees,” Solo Exhibition, Mesa College Art Gallery, San Diego, Ca.
2018                      “DesEscondido, No Longer Hidden,” Public Address at California Center for the Arts Escondido museum (CCAE), Escondido, Ca.
2018                      Puffin Grant for “Daylighting Escondido Creek Watershed,” CCAE, Escondido Ca.
2018                      “A Ship in the Woods Music and Art Festival,” Felicita County Park, Escondido, Ca.
2018                      “Tierra Infirma,” Space 4 Art, San Diego, Ca.
2018                      “Art Auction Preview,” Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, Ca.
2018                      “Campus Creatives,” California Center for the Arts Escondido museum, Escondido, Ca.
2018                      “The Agency of Art,” University Art Gallery,” UC San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, Ca.
2017                      “Weather on Steroids: the Art of Climate Change Science,” La Jolla Historical Society and San Diego Central Library Art Gallery, San Diego, Ca.
2017                      “Endangered: Exploring California’s Changing Ecosystems,” Mesa College Art Gallery, San Diego, Ca.
2017                      “Making Communities: Art and the Border,” University Art Gallery, UCSD, La Jolla, Ca.
2017                      “The Art of Change,” Pacific Beach Library, San Diego, Ca.