Stefan Ruiz - Emergency

Stefan Ruiz focuses on the emergency services of the Rouen Hospital Group (France). For the artist, this service brings to life a system dedicated to responding to the dramas and tragedies of life with a theatrical significance. He photographs the victims, or the actors, of these tragedies in serious situations, as well as the medical staff providing the resolution and unraveling of the plot, after the climax. These portraits, shot with a neutral background to create a break from the direct context, tend to show how patients and medical staff suffer from these hardships - each in his or her own way. The expressions and subtle hints suggest what has happened. The portrait work is complemented by photographs of objects that symbolize the reason for the drama and provide further clues to the plot. Stefan Ruiz is also interested in the rhythm of the emergency room - the daily routine, the excitement and the boredom - and shooted empty spaces when the emergency area was calm.

Stefan Ruiz was born in 1966 in San Francisco; he currently lives and works in New York. He has exhibited at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (2005), Centre Culturel Mexicain, Paris (2005), Rencontres d'Arles where he was nominated for the Prix Dialogue de l'Humanité (2005), PhotoEspaña, Madrid (2003) and Havana Biennale, Cuba (2003). He has published People (Chris Boot, 2006). He was a creative director for COLORS magazine, an art professor at the San Quentin jail, and a laureate of the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie in Hyères.