Ruth Marshall's recreations of animal furs, snakeskins, and cast animal horns cause us to reexamine our relationship with animals. As a sculptor at the bronx zoo, her practice has evolved around creating faux natural and organic environments. Can these synthesized animal artifacts take on the same values as a real animal skin and bone? Perhaps they're something more, the thought that goes into creating an organic pattern and shape in a medium with it's own formal implications, such as knitting, is certainly worth a closer look. Her dedication to both the craft and the animals from which her pieces are drawn is shown in her series of coral snakes, of which she has knit all 68 species love of artifacts and relics has led her across the globe, through europe, northern africa, and asia.

Ruth Recieved M.F.A from The Pratt Institute in 1995 after finishing her B.A. at the Phillip Institute of Technology, Bundoora, in Melbourne, Australia. She was heavily involved in the bronx zoo as an exhibit sculptor the the last 14 years, and now teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York.