Erica Rucker
A Love Well Lived, 2025
Mixed media
20" x 20"
 
Artist Bio
Erica Rucker states, "Much of my work, both as a writer and visual artist, is based on memories, and always the human experience with natural and supernatural occurrences. The way light dances through glass or a cluster of leaves when looking up at a tree, all remind me of things I appreciated as a child learning to understand the world. The way that we speak, look, and interact with each other and nature finds its way onto my pages, into my photographs. Whether unrefined, raw, or regal, our behaviors and remembrances are rich spaces to explore. The idea that we live in context to a world that is unseen but suspected, maybe witnessed, colors how I write and create. In my work as a founding member of Art Sanctuary, I worked with our committee to curate monthly interdisciplinary events, including visual art, performances, and culinary experiences with attention to offering art within reach both economically and as a place that held space for both artists in traditional and non-traditional media. Each show had a thematic structure, and works were juried to coincide. Through these events, we grew a strong network of artists and our own event/curatorial experience It is my intention to capture life on a written page, as a photographer would see it, and on film as a writer would dream it. My work always has a narrative, and, as light is the medium of the photographer, there is always attention to the way light becomes a story in itself and leads its characters towards a better self. As I grow as an artist and avid gardener, the way that I interact with my plants has become a daily part of my creative practice."