SOUTH END NEWS March 25, 2004 (Boston)
"Beautiful Dreamer: John Ruggieri gets whimsical at Gibson Domain | Domain"
by Thomas Garvey

There's a fine line between sugar and saccharine, but artist John Ruggieri seems to know precisely where it lies. And while he may tiptoe right up to that fatal boundary, he never actually crosses over.

The artist works somewhere in the intersection of drawing, photography, and digital enhancement, but his current output -- now on the walls of Gibson Domain/Domain's new South End office through April 15 -- seems to fall cleanly into two fairly traditional camps.

The first of those camps is straightforward photography; for while Ruggieri explains that his "microsummer" series was shot digitally, the impression these iris prints give is of spare, clean, unmanipulated image. Which is, of course, exactly how you'd like to capture a perfect, sunny day.

In his three images from "microsummer," Ruggieri gazes lazily through what look like drifting drapes to a shimmering, sunlit world beyond. Although the artist identifies that world as an idealized "Cape scape," it remains a vague, under-detailed blur (even if the drapes float by in a focus so sharp we can see every loop of their microweave). The particulars of the landscape are nothing; the mood -- of happy, quiet reverie -- is all. There's a note of isolation here, too, and the beach-towel colors may be a little synthetic, but Ruggieri isn't about to let his sweet introspection turn all self-absorbed -- this, we instantly understand, is his little slice of heaven, and that should be enough.

Meanwhile, the six images on display from his "Glow" series, Ruggieri explains in his artist's statement, "are about uniting graphic design and painting processes." This may be true, but it seems like a lot of heavy lifting (along with talk of "gradients" and "optical play") to ask of what are essentially charming little abstractions. Ruggieri is more on target when he simply says, "Think of candy, bubbles, speaker holes, puddles, jewels, disco lights . . . even the Jetsons."

That long list should clue you in to the fact that "Glow," like "microsummer," is essentially a daydream, a gently luminous series of what might be constellations floating in pretty clouds of color. Some seem about to diffuse completely, while others hook up into gamboling swirls or vaguely anthropomorphic shapes -- but whatever you see in them, these dainty nebulae are exquisitely poised between abstraction and whimsy.

Oddly enough, Ruggieri sketched them in the halls of Widener Library. "Sitting at a leather-bound desk surrounded by oak-paneled walls," he says, "I almost felt like an anachronism, plotting abstractly within the antique luxury of Harry Widener's rare book collection." It seems that Ruggieri doesn't have to be on the beach to be fancy-free; he takes his vision with him wherever he goes.

And that vision certainly looks more at home on the pale-lemon walls of Gibson Domain/Domain than in the hallowed halls of Harvard. Manager Andrea Whitcomb explains the rental office will be showcasing a number of local artists over the coming year "as just another kind of connection to our community." She and her colleagues are currently interviewing artists and putting together a show for early May. If their next choice turns out to be as appealing as Ruggieri, Gibson Domain/Domain may well be on its way to becoming another of the South End's art destinations.

Copyright © 2007 John Ruggieri. All rights reserved.