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My paintings are not about the reliving of an experience, but the possession of it
South Carolina is robust with visual poetry, a landscape complex in its layers
The relationship of my paintings to specific places is entirely conceptual Paint ranges from delicate washes to broad, vigorous brush marks and areas of heavy impasto treatment
"Color is of great importance and as a native Southerner I have come to recognize the need for excess and voluptuousness"
The influence of Archibald Rutledge's poetry is deeply imbedded in Rutenberg's work
Music is a passion and the work of pianist Glenn Gould a constant inspiration |
Brian Rutenberg Hillcrest Pine TEW Galleries, May 2007 "Although my paintings are called landscapes, their relationship to specific places is entirely conceptual. I am not interested in rendering a place in oil paint but in creating a dense, highly charged visual event driven by the scintillating act of seeing. For my entire life I have been inspired by the complexity of South Carolina Lowcountry light and the hues of its rivers but my work is not about the reliving of an experience, it is about the total possessing of it." - Brian Rutenberg Brian Rutenberg was born in 1965. He was raised in what he describes as "the unique and resplendent part of South Carolina" stretching from Myrtle Beach down to Charleston. He is passionate about the Lowcountry, describing it as having served as his muse and the source of his visual imagination from as far back as he remembers. Rutenberg is both verbally and visually eloquent. He speaks and writes of "hushed rivers, salty marshes and twisted Live Oak trees clotted with Spanish moss" and describes coastal South Carolina as "robust with visual poetry, a landscape complex in its layers, requiring delicate modulations of color to evoke a hallucinatory, melancholic light." This relationship with the landscape has informed and Rutenberg's use of broad, vigorous brush marks and heavy impasto paint at the bottom and sides of the paintings strengthens this perception of somehow being drawn into the work. The rich, dark tones and the angled verticality of the shapes on the extremities cement the load and support the composition at the base and in doing so, reinforce the impression of verdant growth. From a historical perspective Rutenberg names diverse influences such as the late works of Claude Monet and the pivotal Bathers by Paul Cezanne (1905/06.) He cites the particular incidence of the Bathers "solid triangular composition, shifting facets of hue and immense conceptual scale that creates a frame-within-a-frame under which the monumental nudes of Michelangelo are reborn" as the factors which hold the most fascination for him. Rutenberg also considers himself indebted to the Canadian Group of Seven Painters of the 1920's for their influence on the conventions of foreground and background and the interrelationship of traditional pictorial space. For more diverse reasons he views, Overbeck, Pforr and Wintergerst of the Nazarene movement of 1809, early Piet Mondrian, Maurice Prendergast, and the works of Morris Louis and Thomas Gainsborough as important to his development. In his artist' statement Rutenberg expands on this and other influences providing an impressive insight into the myriad concerns that inform his paintings. It was as an art student at the College of Charleston and later at the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY where he did his masters degree, that Rutenberg first began to explore his native environment and discover his own voice as an artist through a body of work he called his River Paintings. The catalyst for this development was a trip to Italy in which he first saw the Baroque and Rocco ceilings and murals by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770) and others. These often vast frescoes were notable for their silvery light and breathtaking freedom and fluency. The major protagonists of this time were especially noted for their veduta, a genre that relied heavily on dramatic perspective. For Rutenberg, the excitement of self discovery lay not so much in the literal interpretation of these works but in the sense of disorientation that he felt as he gazed up at the ceilings. "There was no top, no bottom, no beginning and no end." This simple revelation when cast in personal terms allowed Rutenberg to view his subject not as representation but as paint, formally and intuitively structured and applied with as much concern for surface as for color and composition. Color is of particular importance for Rutenberg. He says that as a native Southerner he has come to recognize the need for excess and voluptuousness, "I try to push color as The influence of poetry is deeply imbedded in Rutenberg's work and indeed, most of the paintings are to some degree inspired by poems. Particularly important is the work of Archibald Rutledge, former Poet Laureate of South Carolina. "I cherish and collect his (Rutledge') works because he, like many great artists, carefully renders the minutiae of a specific place while simultaneously striking deep chords which transcend the conventions of landscape; his words give wings to secret places which are both foreign and strangely familiar." Music too, is an intensely personal and important passion for Rutenberg. As a student he played drums in a rock band and percussion in a Renaissance music group. Like the diversity of the artists that have inspired him, Rutenberg's taste for music is also strangely incongruous and yet perfectly logical when considered in context with his paintings. Early memories of listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band with his grandmother have translated into a panoply of interrelating shapes and colors, and a long-time devotion to the music of Glenn Gould, an eccentric Canadian pianist most widely known for his interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach continues to inspire a desire for experimentation. Rutenberg has always painted and by all accounts was blessed with a clear sense of what he wanted to do with his life. From the second grade onward his sight has been clearly focused on a life as an artist. "I love what I do. This has been my career, to paint professionally. I say a prayer of thanks every morning." Rutenberg did his BFA at the College of Charleston, in Charleston, SC followed by an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. He has been consistently exhibiting since 1985 and currently has fourteen paintings in American museum collections. Rutenberg has had numerous solo exhibitions in museums and high profile galleries across America, Canada and in Dublin, Ireland. He has also been the recipient of several significant awards, among them a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Fellowship in Painting in 2004 and in 1997 a Fulbright Scholarship, Artists Work Programme Studio Grant, Irish Museum of Modern Art. -Jules Bekker |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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9/29/10
Brian Rutenberg, Hillcrest Pine
influenced Rutenberg's use of color and his approach to composition. His works are often structured around a central area in which the paint application is liquid, the marks soft and at times almost indiscernible, creating the sensation of standing in the shadows and gazing outwards and upwards toward the light. In this way the viewer's perspective is shifted within the body of the painting and one has the feeling of being cocooned by what Rutenberg describes as "buttresses of denser and more muscular passages" on the sides of the canvas. 
far as I possibly can, sometimes to levels of intensity that border on wildness; I believe that sometimes, by almost going too far, you can achieve a kind of clarity. A similar intent," says the artist, "can be found in the works of other Southern artists; especially the writers Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, and Archibald Rutledge. The notion of embellishment in this age of streamlining is of interest to me. I feel that so much more can be done with color than what I see in galleries. Much of what is exhibited uses color either locally as in realism, or color as flat areas, filling in between lines. I am interested in the more inventive use of color which functions fully dimensionally as in artists such as Joan Mitchell, George McNeil, Theodore Stamos, Hans Hoffman, Stanton McDonald-Wright and even Louis Comfort Tiffany. I have always responded to Delacroix's dictum that a painting should be a "feast for the eyes.""
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