Ellen Rutt is a Detroit-based painter, quilter, and builder. Across these forms, she creates images, objects, and environments that explore material intelligence, embodied movement, and the porous boundary between gesture and geography.
BIO
Ellen Rutt (b. 1989) is a Detroit-based painter, muralist, quilter, and graduate of the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design. Her interdisciplinary practice spans installation, textiles, performance, and large-scale public works. Across these forms, she creates images, objects, and environments that explore material intelligence, embodied movement, and the porous boundary between gesture and geography.
Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Library Street Collective, and other institutions. Her murals appear internationally, and in 2025 her painting Forever and No Time At All was acquired by the Buffalo AKG Museum for its permanent collection.
Rutt’s practice extends beyond the studio into ecological research and material experimentation. Through Studio For Now, she convenes environmental workshops and community gatherings that examine relationships between land, climate, and the built environment. In Northern Michigan, she collaboratively designed and constructed a cabin from carbon-sequestering straw panels—an ongoing project that will serve as a site for artist residencies, natural-building education, and immersive experimentation in regenerative art and ecology.
CONTACT
EMAIL
SOCIAL
UPDATES
Ellen Rutt
b. 1989
Lives and works in Detroit, MI
EDUCATION
2012 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Distinction, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2011 Loughborough University, UK
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
2025 Buffalo AKG Museum, Buffalo, NY
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2025 Strata Memory, Lobster Club, Los Angeles
2021 Both/And, Louis Buhl, Detroit, MI
2020 A Garden Or A Grave, Pt.2 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2019 This Must Be The Place, Playground Detroit, Detroit, MI
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
Hi-Vis, Buffalo AKG, Museum
Frieze Fair, Lobster Club, Los Angeles
2024
Sun Contemporary, Bali, Indonesia
2023
The Jaunt, Hashimoto Contemporary, Los Angeles California
Lobster Club, New York, NYC
Get Together, Reyes | Finn, Detroit, MI
2022
Tunde Made a Universe, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Lobster Club, Los Angeles, CA
It Takes A Village, Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI
2021
The Jaunt, Paradigm Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
In The Abstract, Hashimoto Contemporary, SF
2020
Soothe, Curated by Kristin Texeira, Sugarlift Gallery, NYC
Future Sun, Heron Arts, San Francisco, CA
Indexical, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2019
Kindred Spirits, Curated by Temple Children, East Hawaii Museum of Contemporary Art, Hilo,HI
Signs Of The Time, Playground Detroit, Detroit, MI
GRANTS
2024
Flourish Fund Grant
Michigan Arts and Culture Council Grant
CV
PUBLIC ART & SELECTED PROJECTS
2025
Aleatoric at Buffalo AKG Museum
2024
Queer Ecology Lab, Detroit, MI
2022
City of Detroit, Detroit, MI
2021
Hermès, Rochester HIlls, MI
2020 Logistics Property Company, Chicago, IL
Albright Knox Museum Public Art Initiative, Buffalo, NY
2019
The Decomposition Committee, temporary public playground at the Hawaii Museum of Contemporary Art
Signs Of The Time, Curation for the Save Arts Space Billboard Exhibition for Detroit Art Week, Detroit, MI
Partners in Public Art with the Detroit Institute of Art, Mural for the Warren Community Center, Warren, MI
2018
Shared Space Studies, Collaboration with Carson Davis Brown at Arcosanti, AZ
I’m Here, Set design and fabrication for Tunde Olaniran’s music video
Sun Through The Smoke, Commissioned by the City of Victoria, Canada
Van’s US Open, Huntington Beach, CA
Family Quilt, The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, NY
Sight Specific, The Belt & Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI
L'esprit D'escalier, Trumbull & Porter, Detroit, MI
Scene & Seen, Grand Rapids, MI
2017
Nothing Is Separate: A Collaboration with Nature, Site-specific installations at the Temple Children Artist Residency, Hilo, HI
Tile Quilts, Calder Plaza for Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
Serendipity, Festival Les Escales, St. Nazaire, France
UICA Exit Space, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
Brain Storm, Facebook Artist in Residence, Detroit, MI
Patchwork Cleveland, InterUrban Arts, Cleveland, OH
RESIDENCIES
2025 Jana Koya, Landers, CA
2024 Pocoapoco, Oaxaca, MX
2023 Sable Project, Stockbridge, VT
2022 Jana Koya, Landers, CA
2021 Art Farm, NE
2020 Art Farm, NE
2019 Temple Children, Hilo, HI
2018 Maple Terrace, Brooklyn, NY
2017 Temple Children, Hilo, HI