Sterling Ruby's work vacillates between the fluid and the static, the minimalist and the expressionistic, the pristine and the defaced. Using a range of techniques that includes video art, urethane sculpture, and nail-polish drip painting, the multimedia artist explores the formal qualities of repression and containment. Ruby was born in Germany, but was raised in Pennsylvania, and he received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 and his MFA from California's Art Center College of Design in 2005. Ruby has exhibited in Europe and North America; at his 2006 Interior Designer solo show at Los Angeles' Marc Foxx, he defaced colorful Formica monoliths with scrawled graffiti — a cheeky slight to minimalism.

Ruby has two shows in New York this month. Kiln Works at Chelsea's Metro Pictures is his first exhibit focusing exclusively on ceramics, which he dominates with bold colors and organic forms. Head Artist (Red) resembles an inverted pelvis, though its bright metallic glazes and roughened surface obscure any human features. Other pieces, such as Bride's Basket with Mortar & Pestle and Astral Manger, evoke domestic life only to hint at interior violence or decay.

Further downtown, in SoHo, the Drawing Center showcases Ruby's fascination with the act of mark-making in CHRON . Mapping (Pink) navigates the tension between cartographic precision and expressive drips of luridly sanguine nail polish, and a collage entitled Prison links geometric formalism to oppressive confinement, as bright neon lines radiate from the image of a prison cell. However, despite his grim themes, Ruby's energetic and wide-ranging works reveal a young artist exulting in his freedom to deny the boundaries of any single medium or movement.

-Adam Eaker