Ruth Trotter's work, 'Quercy,' will join an exhibition in Melbourne, Australia, curated by Dion Johnson, curator of the Harris Gallery on the University of La Verne campus.

Global Impression

University of La Verne professor of art Ruth Trotter is one of six artists featured in “Covering Ground,” an exhibition that will open this month in Melbourne, Australia.

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by Rusty Evans
March 15, 2012

University of La Verne professor of art Ruth Trotter will be one of six artists featured in the exhibit “Covering Ground” which opens this month in Melbourne, Australia.

The exhibition, curated by Dion Johnson, who is also curator of the Harris Art Gallery at the University of La Verne, is a collaboration between six mid-career abstract painters from Los Angeles and Melbourne.

Trotter’s ‘Quercy’ (2011) is acrylic and oil on linen and is an example of “non-objective painting as a mode of pictorial representation” which “draw conceptual references from landscape, architecture, psychology and telecast media,” as described by Johnson.

Trotter’s work is joined by that of Los Angeles artists Barbara Kerwin and Marion Lane, who take a similar approach in their work. Johnson describes Melbourne-based artists Katherine Boland, Terri Brooks and Dawn Csutoros as three who “construct abstract paintings based on nature and derive content from materials and process.”

“It is an honor to exhibit my work along with these five remarkable women artists: Katherine Boland, Terri Brooks, and Dawn Csutoros from Melbourne, and Barbara Kerwin and Marion Lane from Los Angeles,” Trotter said. “The experience of working together and discovering our commonalities as painters has been exhilarating.”

Trotter has been a professor of art at the University of La Verne since 1989, and her paintings, prints, and drawings have been exhibited locally and nationally. Her resume is impressive.

She was a 2010 Artist in Residence at DRAWinternational, a contemporary art center in Caylus, France. She said part of the inspiration for ‘Quercy’ came from this period.

“My painting ‘Quercy,’ is inspired by my experience as a visiting artist in the south of France,” Trotter said. “Quercy is the ancient name of the region where I stayed, which is known for its beautiful and rugged limestone buildings, some dating back to the 13th Century. The painting refers to the beauty of this region, its buildings, and its landscape.”

In addition to teaching and maintaining a studio practice, Trotter has extensive curatorial experience and has served as a panelist and advisor to several arts organizations in the Los Angeles area.

She has received several research grants for teaching, as well as for her studio work. Her current work explores her obsession with modernism, but is inspired by the intersection of art and psychology in early 20th Century modern art movements, particularly Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.