Rick Pottruff

Rick Pottruff was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1945, and studied at St. Martin's School of Art in Oxford as well as Central School of Art in London. He obtained his BA from McMaster University. Presently he teaches 3D imaging at both Seneca College and Sheraton. He lives in Hamilton.

Pottruff's work conjures the promises of technology, highway, 9-5 jobs, architecture, the machinery of industry, everyday, and the city as subject to a non-imposed, simultaneous order of forces. His drawings range from near-apocalyptic renderings of the post-industrial city to everyday appliances run amok. Rather than the disintegration of apocalypse, however, the city begins to pulsate. It is as if the illusion of stability has begun to rupture, producing distorted versions of humanly produced environments. Says Pottruff: "I want the single image to vibrate with life". The animate spontaneity of the work reflects his worldview that "you don't come upon the big things by deciding, they just emerge". The result is a sense of compelling dislocation, a distention of industrial purity, landscape and the unfulfilled promise of technology.

https://virtualcities.humanities.mcmaster.ca/artists/pottruff.html