Sterling Ruby is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes richly glazed biomorphic ceramics, large-scale spray-painted canvases, poured urethane sculptures, nail polish drawings, various forms of collage, and hypnotic videos. His work is a form of assault on both materials and social power structures. He takes his subject matter from a wide range of sources, including marginalized societies, maximum security prisons, modernist architecture, artifacts and antiquities, graffiti, bodybuilders, the mechanisms of warfare, cults and cult members, and urban gangs. In a 2008 review, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith called Ruby "one of the most interesting artists to emerge in this century. That's only eight years, of cour...