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Cris Bruch was born in Sugarcreek, Missouri in 1957 and raised in the Kansas City, Missouri area. He spent the first decades of his life in the Midwest. He earned a BFA in ceramics/sculpture at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Following completion of an MFA and MA at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Bruch moved to Seattle in 1986, the city that has remained his home for over 20 years.
In the 1980's Bruch's work was often performance driven, and focused on issues of deep concern to him -the imbalance and aggression latent in American consumer culture and its impact on the Third World, homelessness and economic disparity, and a wish to bridge the gap that distances art from its audience. A major body of work from this period was a series of shopping carts which dealt with these issues metaphorically, and which were exhibited widely to critical acclaim. Later in the decade, he received the Northwest Major Works Award from the Seattle Arts Commission. His commission for the Northgate Transit Center METRO station began a decades-long involvement with public art. He garnered a number of important reviews during this period, with his work being discussed in the national publications ArtNews, High Performance, Artweek, Art in America and Art Forum.
In the 1990's, Bruch's work began to integrate issues of consumer culture and social/economic disparity with a more formal aesthetic, characterized by the use of non-traditional materials and repetitive processes. This work was informed by an awareness of the unconscious, oft-repeated actions that, to one degree or another, form our lives and define who we are. In 1990, Bruch received the Betty Bowen Memorial Award, and was selected to create a permanent entry sculpture for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center in Port Angeles, WA. He was selected for residencies at the Ateliers Hoherweg, Dusseldorf, Germany; Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, CA; and Centrum Foundation, Port Angeles, WA.
In 2001, he received a Neddy Fellowship from the Behnke Foundation in Seattle, awarded to outstanding artists working in the Northwest. He served as a visiting instructor at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT and at the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago, IL. In 2003, one of his sculptures was purchased as part of the Honors Award Program for the King County Art Collection, and he was honored with an Alumni Achievement Award in Art, bestowed by the University of Wisconsin. A comprehensive survey of his work was presented by the Salt Lake Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT in 2003, portions of which then traveled to the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID in 2004.
Since 2000, Bruch's career has included more public commissions. He was awarded a commission to create a sculpture for the University of Washington, Seattle through a joint effort of the University and the Washington State Arts Commission; the sculpture was installed in 2004. In 2006, Bruch installed a major outdoor sculpture for the Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon, for which he garnered a 2008 GSA Design Award for Excellence in Art and Architecture. He will create a major work of public sculpture for Vulcan, Inc., to be sited in downtown Seattle in the spring of 2009, a sculpture for TriMet to be installed in Portland, OR, and sculptures for the Brightwater treatment plant in King County, WA.
Bruch was the recipient of an Artist Trust/ Washington State Arts Commission Artist Fellowship in 2006 and a Pollock Krasner Foundation award in 2007.
Cris Bruch is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR and by Lawrimore Project in Seattle, WA
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