Hello!

My name is Jodi Ruffner and I am an artist, primarily a painter, based in Southern Illinois. I am originally from York, Pennsylvania and I have lived in Illinois for nearly 25 years. I earned my BFA at Penn State University, and my MFA Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. In between the two, my husband and I raised our two children and I worked for many years in elementary education.

Within my studio practice, I am a painter who incorporates mixed media at times, most recently the combination of the photographic image with paint. Throughout these years of creating work I have continuously been attracted to themes of human potential, uncovering light, parallel perception, and creating metaphoric depictions of “that which is beyond reason” that co-exists alongside the “everyday”. I often strive to instill a sense of luminosity and vivid color that surfaces above a dull murky greyness as a way of visually describing the moments when we are able to see through the weariness of the day to day and shadows of hopelessness. I am drawn to include some allusion to a pathway, doorway, or a portal; a threshold for the viewer to cross into another more liminal space caught between reality and elsewhere.