SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
"re-ligare"
Offsite Gallery, World Trade Center, Norfolk VA October 19th - November 30th 2018
Offsite Gallery, World Trade Center, Norfolk VA October 19th - November 30th 2018
Absorb, Resist, Edit and Seek
Virginia MOCA, January 30th - April 15th, 2016 Curated by Heather Hakimzadeh
ABSORB, RESIST, EDIT AND SEEK
Digital culture has changed the way society views the world. Imagery from little flat screens inundates our lives. At some point we have to question the value of reproductions instead of looking in real time. This is the concern of artist, John Rudel. He chooses imagery that seems familiar and gives us a frame of reference as a starting point, like a crowd scene or clouds. From there, the exploration of patterns, texture, layers, form and mass begins. Time spent simply looking at a work of art becomes a meditative act. It frees the viewer from everyday distractions.
Rudel created these works from found pieces of stainless steel. They are the cast-offs of a manufacturing process, found among the heaps in a scrap yard. They have allowed the artist to abandon the constraints of traditional rectangular paintings. They are the cut-outs, the parts left behind when constructing a useful object such as a washing machine. Rudel has reengaged these pieces and forces a reexamination of them. Perhaps this is a hint, a metaphor for our own lives. Should we examine constructs that form who we are?
-Heather Hakimzadeh, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art Curator
Digital culture has changed the way society views the world. Imagery from little flat screens inundates our lives. At some point we have to question the value of reproductions instead of looking in real time. This is the concern of artist, John Rudel. He chooses imagery that seems familiar and gives us a frame of reference as a starting point, like a crowd scene or clouds. From there, the exploration of patterns, texture, layers, form and mass begins. Time spent simply looking at a work of art becomes a meditative act. It frees the viewer from everyday distractions.
Rudel created these works from found pieces of stainless steel. They are the cast-offs of a manufacturing process, found among the heaps in a scrap yard. They have allowed the artist to abandon the constraints of traditional rectangular paintings. They are the cut-outs, the parts left behind when constructing a useful object such as a washing machine. Rudel has reengaged these pieces and forces a reexamination of them. Perhaps this is a hint, a metaphor for our own lives. Should we examine constructs that form who we are?
-Heather Hakimzadeh, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art Curator
Pick a Number
at Pink Dog Creative, Asheville NC, River Arts District August - September 2015
PICK A NUMBER
The body of work presented here is made from found pieces of stainless steel. Most of these panels represent shapes that had functional value as part of a production process, but were later cast-off as unnecessary. I discovered them by chance among piles of detritus material in a scrap yard. They suggest a specific kind of “formerly useful” aesthetic. The skewed trajectory that resulted in me having them seems metaphorically salient... a kind of awkward reflection of a larger context. These shapes lost the function of their origin, but their structure of lost reference became the ultimate visual property to inspire the paintings. This isn’t dissimilar to human experience of the world. We are born into social, cultural, and technological contexts that we inherit from the past. These structures ultimately define our experiences, minds and bodies.
I’m interested in how the “recipe of particulars” within a painting makes it work as a carrier of sensation. I like images and motifs that escape duration and reflect the infinite time that is inside of still images. I’m attracted to pictures that might hold a viewer’s interest, such as the spectacle of a sunset or a crowd scene. Recognizable images have the power to engage a viewer in a familiar way while underlying surface texture, color sensibility, or competing hyper decorative patterns might inspire the evolution of a more poetic, ambiguous, or deeper interpretation.
My work invites the rapid and quickly gratifying world of digital image reproduction into the slow and reflective process of painting. In my work visual competition is symbolic of a continuous oscillation, a constant re-positioning of my thinking between ideas and mindsets. Information comes to me as a matrix of comparisons. My work comes about in much the same way. My images are the result of an imperfect physical process. They are visual discoveries that embody the subtle and lost decisions that build up over time and crease one's skin and shape one’s character.
The body of work presented here is made from found pieces of stainless steel. Most of these panels represent shapes that had functional value as part of a production process, but were later cast-off as unnecessary. I discovered them by chance among piles of detritus material in a scrap yard. They suggest a specific kind of “formerly useful” aesthetic. The skewed trajectory that resulted in me having them seems metaphorically salient... a kind of awkward reflection of a larger context. These shapes lost the function of their origin, but their structure of lost reference became the ultimate visual property to inspire the paintings. This isn’t dissimilar to human experience of the world. We are born into social, cultural, and technological contexts that we inherit from the past. These structures ultimately define our experiences, minds and bodies.
I’m interested in how the “recipe of particulars” within a painting makes it work as a carrier of sensation. I like images and motifs that escape duration and reflect the infinite time that is inside of still images. I’m attracted to pictures that might hold a viewer’s interest, such as the spectacle of a sunset or a crowd scene. Recognizable images have the power to engage a viewer in a familiar way while underlying surface texture, color sensibility, or competing hyper decorative patterns might inspire the evolution of a more poetic, ambiguous, or deeper interpretation.
My work invites the rapid and quickly gratifying world of digital image reproduction into the slow and reflective process of painting. In my work visual competition is symbolic of a continuous oscillation, a constant re-positioning of my thinking between ideas and mindsets. Information comes to me as a matrix of comparisons. My work comes about in much the same way. My images are the result of an imperfect physical process. They are visual discoveries that embody the subtle and lost decisions that build up over time and crease one's skin and shape one’s character.
Sum Accumulation
Neil Britton Art Gallery at Virginia Wesleyan University 2014
SUM ACCUMULATION
"Sum Accumulation" features artworks that reveal a unique continuity within John Rudel’s painting practice over the last decade. This show features work in a wide variety of media. From transferred inkjet prints on gessoed canvas to excavated time magazines buried in resin and covered in a field of painted squares the artist's imagery reveals an elastic and fluent ability to synthesize layers and produce reverberation. He states, "painting is a central aspect of my life. For me the work has 'meaning.' I like to think that ultimately my images will communicate with viewers - not in a straightforward manner. My work tends to develop it's own logic. A viewer might recognize the communicative experience as something like a shared sensibility.”
The visual language presented in this body of work combines the traditional practice and conventions of painting with the rapid abilities of digital imaging tools. “I am imprinted by the ubiquitous digital environment. I invite it into my painting practice. I actively consider how my tools work on me… for me the creative process is necessarily slow – because painting requires it – and ultimately I think the images need the viewer’s time to engage them in a primary way.”
The use of photographic imagery within the work seems to relate to our world in a very direct way - by representing specific things - however the imagery seems to feel more symbolic. Images are more than what they are while they compete within Rudel's aggregate compositions. Multiple works reveal a vernacular photographic aesthetic laced through more formally refined shape fields and color patterns. The two modes seem to compete for attention. That competition makes the images read most effectively as somehow oscillating between gripping nostalgia and unstoppable disintegration. The physical surfaces and color patterns that provide the structure for the imagery could be simultaneously deconstructing and rebuilding the “meaning” of the images as we look on.
As the title suggests, this exhibition brings together works that add to each other. The Neil Britton Gallery is pleased to host this unique opportunity to see a collection of works that highlight a ten year period of development within John Rudel's work.
"Sum Accumulation" features artworks that reveal a unique continuity within John Rudel’s painting practice over the last decade. This show features work in a wide variety of media. From transferred inkjet prints on gessoed canvas to excavated time magazines buried in resin and covered in a field of painted squares the artist's imagery reveals an elastic and fluent ability to synthesize layers and produce reverberation. He states, "painting is a central aspect of my life. For me the work has 'meaning.' I like to think that ultimately my images will communicate with viewers - not in a straightforward manner. My work tends to develop it's own logic. A viewer might recognize the communicative experience as something like a shared sensibility.”
The visual language presented in this body of work combines the traditional practice and conventions of painting with the rapid abilities of digital imaging tools. “I am imprinted by the ubiquitous digital environment. I invite it into my painting practice. I actively consider how my tools work on me… for me the creative process is necessarily slow – because painting requires it – and ultimately I think the images need the viewer’s time to engage them in a primary way.”
The use of photographic imagery within the work seems to relate to our world in a very direct way - by representing specific things - however the imagery seems to feel more symbolic. Images are more than what they are while they compete within Rudel's aggregate compositions. Multiple works reveal a vernacular photographic aesthetic laced through more formally refined shape fields and color patterns. The two modes seem to compete for attention. That competition makes the images read most effectively as somehow oscillating between gripping nostalgia and unstoppable disintegration. The physical surfaces and color patterns that provide the structure for the imagery could be simultaneously deconstructing and rebuilding the “meaning” of the images as we look on.
As the title suggests, this exhibition brings together works that add to each other. The Neil Britton Gallery is pleased to host this unique opportunity to see a collection of works that highlight a ten year period of development within John Rudel's work.
THE METAGRID PROJECT
at Lorrie Saunders ArtGallery, Norfolk VA - 2013
at Lorrie Saunders ArtGallery, Norfolk VA - 2013
THE METAGRID PROJECT
The grid has been a dominant undergirding of painting and image making practice for the better part of history. So there is a kind of self-referencing aspect to the show title “Metagrid.” It embodies the history from which contemporary painting emerges. Painting is a very personal, slow, reflective, and sometimes frustrating act.
Alternately, photographic digital manipulation is collaborative, quick, and immediately gratifying. The recurrence of digital image reproduction within my work carries direct connotations of our contemporary culture of sampling, recording, and easy dissemination. We live in a massive entanglement… a huge information grid if you will. This realization returns us to the show title “Metagrid” which might be interpreted as referring to the massive data environment that informs our lives at most every level.
The dominant aesthetic element within this show is a notable grid structure that defines each composition. The aesthetic of binary decision-making, of right or left turns, of squares or pixels is one that permeates my thinking. Resulting from environmental influences, cultivated interests or maybe even subconscious need, it would seem that inside of my own creative process I seem to again be working on the “Metagrid.”
The grid has been a dominant undergirding of painting and image making practice for the better part of history. So there is a kind of self-referencing aspect to the show title “Metagrid.” It embodies the history from which contemporary painting emerges. Painting is a very personal, slow, reflective, and sometimes frustrating act.
Alternately, photographic digital manipulation is collaborative, quick, and immediately gratifying. The recurrence of digital image reproduction within my work carries direct connotations of our contemporary culture of sampling, recording, and easy dissemination. We live in a massive entanglement… a huge information grid if you will. This realization returns us to the show title “Metagrid” which might be interpreted as referring to the massive data environment that informs our lives at most every level.
The dominant aesthetic element within this show is a notable grid structure that defines each composition. The aesthetic of binary decision-making, of right or left turns, of squares or pixels is one that permeates my thinking. Resulting from environmental influences, cultivated interests or maybe even subconscious need, it would seem that inside of my own creative process I seem to again be working on the “Metagrid.”