Ruth Rau is a watercolor artist living in Chicago, Illinois. She holds an MA(RCA) degree in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art, London, and BFA degrees in Art History and Graphic Design. She runs her own successful graphic design business, and has also taught art and design history in England and the US.

Ruth’s work explores our layered experiences of nature, and the tangled quality of memory. The compositions in her paintings are informed by (and in many ways contradict) her experience as a graphic designer. Her work explores how quiet and fluid watercolor sits in contrast with stronger, drawn lines. Her paintings play with the different elements in an image (and in memory) and how they can come to the fore and simultaneously recede.