Arlene Rush

Arlene Rush is a New York City-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work addresses themes and issues that impact the contemporary world, including gender roles, societal norms, socioeconomics, and politics.

Early life and education

Rush was born in Manhattan in 1955, and grew up in the Parkchester section of The Bronx. As a child, Rush's creativity, which included playing with Erector sets and Play-Doh and carving soap, was encouraged by her parents.

Career Rush's artistic career began in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, where she obtained her first studio in 1986.

Rush has previously worked in the architectural and design furnishing industry doing sales, design, project management, and architectural restoration. She has taught art to women with cancer through The Creative Center, a New York based nonprofit organization that brings creative arts to people with cancer and chronic illnesses.

Artwork In the beginning of her career, Rush created abstract metal sculptures in a modernist style following architectural concepts. In 1991, Rush’s art-making was stirred by Buddhism, which led to an incorporation of philosophical ideas in her artwork. In addition to making art inspired by Buddhist philosophy, she follows the modern New Kadampa Buddhist tradition.

Starting from the mid to late 1990s, Rush's art began to focus on an interdisciplinary conceptual art practice that uses corporeal forms and iconography to explore the human condition, and society's views on gender roles and identity.

Rush's My Body As a Battleground is a series documenting her experience with breast cancer in 2011. A participatory element of Evidence of Being took place at a phone booth on 14th Street and 7th Avenue during Art in Odd Places ''' 2019 festival: INVISIBLE. For the public art event, Rush created an installation using rejection letters from her career and from an open call on social media inviting people to bring their own rejection letters.

Her social and politically themed work includes the mixed-media series Where Liberty Dwells (2019), which features gilded objects displayed upon tasseled pillows and ornate plinths. In 2021, Rush started to develop NFTs that reflect her longstanding themes of social justice and identity.

In 2020, Rush's work was exhibited in Silvermine Art Center's 70th A•ONE, curated by Barbara O'Brien.

Rush's first minted NFT, I’m Still Here, was exhibited at the Every Woman Biennial on June 24, 2021.

In 2024, Rush was part of the group exhibition Political Circus at Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt Center Gallery. Her politically charged work included pieces from her Where Liberty Dwells and In Excess series. That same year, she had work from her Twins series exhibited in At Face Value, curated by Robert Curcio and Leah Oates at Station Independent Projects in Toronto, Canada. For her work that was exhibited at Silvermine Art Center's 70th A•ONE (2020), Rush was awarded the Carole Eisner Award For Sculpture. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York, NY); Museum of Modern Art (Wales, UK); Museu Brasileiro de Escultura, Sao Paulo, Brazil; The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia, PA); Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Bldg., Washington, D.C.

Rush's art is also in notable private collections including collectors Sara M. Vance Waddell (Cincinnati, OH) and Joe Baio (New York, NY)