Artist Biography

Ruby Jean Waterhouse, born in Headingley, Leeds in 2000, is a multimedia artist working across video, performance, photography, drawing, installation, textiles, sculpture and sound. After studying Art at A-Level, she joined the Art Foundation at Leeds Arts University in 2019, where she began exploring performance and video focused on the body’s interaction with materials. In 2020, she started a BFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, but due to Covid-19 restrictions, shifted from performance to video. Using materials like elastic, she created filmed interactions that emphasised form, leading to her concept of “video-drawing.”

Returning to Leeds during the pandemic, Waterhouse became inspired by the Yorkshire landscape, particularly water. She continued her “video-drawings,” introducing projection and fabric—described as “the water’s costume.” In her second year, with full studio access, she developed more physical installations using fabric and projection. In January 2022, she exhibited this work in the FISHTANK exhibition, further expanding her interest in installation, lighting and textiles.

As a studio holder at Assembly House, Waterhouse is further developing her concept of Invisible Performance, a term she uses to describe the traces left behind by different sources of movement, including human presence and nature. Rooted in an expanded understanding of drawing, her practice moves beyond the artist’s hand, instead framing mark-making as something that emerges through interaction, duration, and environmental conditions. In her current work, she explores the sun as a collaborator, using cyanotype processes to produce sculptures, prints, and site-specific installations.