Perfectly Ordinary is an exhibition of new still life prints by Ruth O’Donnell and consists of a series of more than 120 small etchings produced over the course of a year.

The imagery comes from many sources, from the history of still life, from paintings, museum objects and the artist’s everyday life, all treated equally.

O’Donnell is an experienced printmaker with a light touch, and she has been developing her sugar lift etching technique to allow drawing on small copper plates to be as fluid and immediate as a note in a sketchbook. She has printed and reprinted the plates in several structured series. Individual prints representing values are presented alone, then assembled in small groups, lines and grids. The process has been very much part of the development of the sheer presence of the work. Like shuffled decks, the shifting compositions make a myriad of connections with their elusive thematic content. The works are still and contemplative, but the content triggers questions about values, memory, beauty, perspectives, the passage of time and the now.