Ruffin Gallery at the University of Virginia presents We Dream of Life, a monumental installation by New Mexico-based artist Paula Wilson and California-based artist iris yirei hu, whose latest collaboration reflects their close friendship, shared dreams, and their exploration of the natural world.
Made from painting, collage, and monotype, the 56-foot-long textile extends across the gallery from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and took more than a year to complete. Within the textile, a larger-than-life blue deity stretches from dawn to dusk, planting their feet and hands firmly in the earth, while their body limns the night sky. Hands, flower blossoms, moths, teeth, bones scatter like seeds across the cosmos. The figure’s indelible presence links humanity to the infinite mysteries across time and space. Their existence in the ongoing transformation from yesterday to tomorrow marks the freedom in being alive.
This blue deity is a marriage of each artist’s personal iconographies as seen in their oeuvres: Wilson’s monumental, extraordinary beings that rise like goddesses with multitudes held within their dress, and hu’s blue spirits that swim, float, and journey within her paintings. Outstretched across the sky, the deity loosely references the ancient Egyptian god Nut, who rules the stars, mothers, and the universe, and is said to swallow the sun each night and birth it each morning.
Wilson and hu often share their nightly dreams with one another, which has become integral to the way they work and relate to one another. They see both the dreaming life and waking life as source material for their creative practices. Relatedly, the gallery will be painted in a dark blue, referencing the night, whose mysterious landscape brings to light the subterranean and reparative wisdom of lived experience.
On view January 30-March 20, 2026
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm
Artist Talk: Friday, January 30, 3:30-5:00pm | Campbell Hall 160
Opening Reception: Friday, January 30, 5:00-7:30pm | Ruffin Gallery
This exhibition is supported by the UVA Department of Art, the Peter B. and Adeline W. Ruffin Foundation, and an Arts Enhancement Grant from UVA Arts & the Office of the Provost & the Vice Provost for the Arts.