Ruth Trotter is a painter and Professor of Art at the University of La Verne in Southern California. She received her B.A. from Scripps College and her M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work draws inspiration from Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, as well as other literary sources and from notions of order and chaos. Shifting from previous explorations of landscape, these works examine the mythology of the sea as a metaphor for modern and contemporary questions. Recent works explore themes of absence, disorientation, and isolation. The subject matter is largely abstract, but deconstructs other potently metaphorical images such as boats, ships, coffins, and vessels — all allusions to the human figure.
