Lee Ruelle was born and raised in Two Rivers, WI. He received a Bachelor degree in Art from the University of Wisconsin, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute. As part of his studies at Pratt, Ruelle conducted independent study at the Museum of Modern Art, Department of Drawings and Prints–researching the work of Paul Klee, Joan Miro, and Anton Heyboer. After the completion of his studies, Ruelle created etchings at Robert Blackburn’s printmaking workshop under the auspices of the Jerome Foundation. In the following years, Ruelle established an art studio in nearby Long Island City, where he executed drawings, pastels, and paintings. Ruelle currently lives and works in New York, NY.

Ruelle’s art is informed by the visual language of our collective unconscious, as presented in Carl G. Jung’s writings in Man and His Symbols, and seeks to reawaken our profound connection with the natural world. His painting style is characterized by loose monochromatic color fields, paired with carefully rendered symbolic representations of natural forms within a flat plane of pictorial space. Ruelle’s recent canvases in the “Pinus” series (Latin: pine tree) represent a departure for the artist, shifting his perspective from a romanticized rendering of natural forms to one that encompasses the threat of catastrophic climate change. The catalyst for his shift occurred while hiking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, where Ruelle encountered vast stands of devastated conifers in the Inyo National Forest which were suffering the dual ravages of pine beetle infestation and massive wildfires. In this series of paintings, Ruelle asks audiences to confront the urgent issues of climate change, environmental degradation, and their impact on us.

Ruelle’s artworks have been showcased in numerous public exhibitions at institutions, including New York Public Library; National Library in Madrid, Spain; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City.