Nothing is harder to categorize than an artist as
versatile and unpredictable as Bill Rusedski. Largely self-taught
and thus unpolluted by any specific influence. He has been producing
works of art of mind–boggling diversity and in equally
impressive quantity. One would think, looking at the massive
accumulation of canvasses and works on paper, that they are
witnessing the fruits of a long career, but Rusedski is a young
man, what makes this enormous outpouring all the more astounding.
His pen and ink, and gouache drawings have evolved from simple
doodles into intricate fantastic universes populated by characters
drawn from an amalgam of Pop culture and imagination.
Dragons and satyrs, bizarre mask-like faces and whimsical cats
are executed with a surprising artistic dexterity, as if one
were looking at cartoons casually conceived by a great master.
In these highly narrative works on paper, Rusedski exhibits
a wonderful faculty in handling the medium, not to mention a
bottomless and unbridled imagination.This creative and gestural
abandon is reminiscent of the works of Jean Dubuffet, originator
of the term art brut and a man with an equally irreverent approach
to the creative process. Rusedski shares with the French artist
the same talent of rendering myriad expressions with but a few
gestures or in a flurry of swirls, dense lines and cross-hatching.
He also seems to possess the same endless supply of creative
energy that allows him to produce works of art at an amazing
rate. This can only be accomplished with a high dose of improvisation,
an intuitive Coding that may have more to do with music than
drawing. (Dubuffet was to have compared his own art to Chinese
music).
Driven by some inner pulse, Rusedski produces works that are as spontaneous
and unpredictable as they are controlled and composed, spilling
out in an endless variety.This compulsive, at times overwhelming
output is but one manifestation of the creative genius of
Bill Rusedski. What really makes this young artist stand out
are his paintings.
Large, abstract acrylic landscapes are executed with the
same, consistent spontaneity, and uniquely esoteric imagination.
In splashes and dabs, smudges and smears, the paint swirls
across the canvas in a fluid movement, never aggressive, as
if abiding by some invisible rhythm. In a style impossible
to categorize, that seems to meander between naïve and
Impressionistic, Rusedski composes strange vistas at once
familiar and alien. His paintings offer an unusual challenge
to both the casual viewer and the art critic, with the latter
entangled in a major conundrum. All the viewer has to do,
is look and feel, let the image work on the imagination, let
the mind’s eye roam this enigmatic realm with total
abandon. Rusedski’s works, for all their strangeness,
are non-threatening and meditative. They are mysterious snapshots
of emotional states that find their expression in art.
As such, they resemble works done during art therapy sessions,
and again,bring to mind the unstructured, atavistic universe
of Dubuffet and art brut, or what is also called “outsider
art” . The term is used to describe art produced by
people outside the established art world-people such as recluses,
psychriatric patients, and fringe-dwellers of all kinds.
For Dubuffet, such art was “springing from pure invention
and in no way based, as cultural art constantly is, on chameleon-
or parrot-like processes’’, and evidence of the
power of originality that we all possess but which in most
has been stifled by educational training and social constraints.
Far from naive, (which Dubuffet distinguished from art brut
as still remaining within the cultural mainstream), Rusedski’s
art has indeed echoes of outsider art, but to end at this
would be facile, and his talent deserves further exploration.
For all the spontaneity and visual abandon, he possesses
an instinctual ability to suspend the brush at the right moment,
leaving the canvas hovering between completion and abstraction.
There is no overindulgence in either the visual or the emotional,
only the bare minimum and yet each fleeting image contains
an entire universe. An innate adherence to pictorial demands
of the craft holds these works in check, making the process
of their deciphering all the more difficult. Are these merely
spontaneous, automatic visual musings of a childlike spirit,
or the product of a refined and highly unique talent?
In one work, large leaves float on a pond echoing Monet’s
water lilies. The palette is awash in blues and yellows, the
paint applied in heavy, quick dabs making the whole a strange
combination of the abstract with the figurative. he same can
be said of a number of Rusedski’s recent paintings,
that seem to have no beginning or end, flowing endlessly from
brush stroke to brush stroke, their final configuration often
a surprise to the artist himself.
His work, like Gertrude Stein’s literary free associations,
are clearly born of the unconscious, assembling into shapes
and forms that require a different lexicon to comprehend.
Many of his paintings are composed of horizontal planes of
colour that meld into a quasi landscape, shimmering with movement
and light. Stripes of pink and purple, yellow and blue float
by, as if caught briefly by the confines of the canvas, and
the eye follows them without the need of any direction. As
much as one would like to know what hides behind these translucent,
painted strata, what current propels the image, its quiet
rhythm has a soothing effect, seduce us into the simple act
of looking.
The rest takes place in our subconscious, and there are
works in which Rusedski seems to delve deeper into the unknown,
unearthing symbols and visions. Crosses appear in some of
his paintings, strange, medieval cities hover on the horizon,
clouds spiral into funnels, and descends on a still hilltop.
An entirely different mood imbues a series of purely abstract
works that are a frenetic jumble of colourful patches, dancing
and jostling into vibrant compositions. With quick, decisive
dabs of paint, the artist fills canvas upon canvas, each a
unique image, yet undeniably belonging to the same eclectic
family.
These are perhaps the most accomplished of Rusedski’s
latest works, vivacious and unconstrained, and unquestionably
entirely modern.
DOROTA KOZINSKA
Montreal 2003
Dororta Kozinska is a writer, art critic, and journalist
based in Montreal. Her art Reviews and articles have been
published extensively in Vie des Art, Parcours Informateur
des arts, MagazinArt, Art Forum, and the Gazette, aswell as
broadcast Internationally on CBC Radio. She is the author
of David B. Milne: A Quiet Genius (Galerie Walter Klinkhoff,Montreal
2001),Emily Carr:Speaking with Nature (Gallerie Walter Klinkhoff,
Montreal 2002),Dina Podolsky: Seeing Memory (Opera Gallery,
New York 2003), and Kathleen Moir Morris: View from an Inner
Window (Gallerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal 2003). |
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