Alison Ruttan is an interdisciplinary artist working in ceramics, drawing, photography and video. She has a longstanding interest in experimenting with the language and forms borrowed from one discipline that are then applied to another. Ruttan is particularly interested in the complex kinds of social exchanges that are best understood visually or at the level of physiological response. For this reason, much of her work has focused on appetite, sexuality, and aggression. At present she is involved in a long-term ceramic sculpture series that is following the conflicts in the Middle East.

Ruttan is an associate professor of contemporary practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.