Brian Rutenberg

Fun stuff - informative, irreverent - and he's quite a talented guy. Thanks for posting these, Hermes!
 
Yeah I've been watching and listening to him for a while now. His paintings and talks are very nice. He makes me roll my eyes sometimes with his hyper-earnestness but I also don't see many other artists trying to be so open and ummm well, earnest. Not easy to do.
 
I've watched quite a few as I really like his work -- fantastic colour sense. Oh, and all that paint... I'm typically looking at the painting behind him and forget to listen what he's saying much of the time, though when I snap out of my reverie he's generally talking about growing up in South Carolina or some place :)
 
Yeah he's wealthy and sells well. He lives and has a studio in NYC and has a weekend place in East Hampton about thirty miles from me . I live on the blue collar side of town, up island. So it's nice that he does the vids, because I don't think he has to. He's sharing which is very cool and his enthusiasm is nice.

As far as his paints, I believe he is using fluorescent paints and with black lights added to regular lighting, they just beam out from behind the trees.
 
I believe he is using fluorescent paints and with black lights added to regular lighting, they just beam out from behind the trees.
What painting are you talking about John. Do you have a name or pic?
 
What painting are you talking about John. Do you have a name or pic?
I could be wrong but I think those paintings with the glowing background s are fluorescent paints. Or it could be class beads things like that metallic iridescent additions to paints that can really make them glow. As I recall in one of his videos he even acknowledged to using some secret ingredients in his paints. Of course this takes nothing away from his art. The man has some serious skills and creativity and artists should use all things that help make art.
 
Ok, I see. It's art and anything goes so why stick to one medium? I read that somewhere but I can't remember where.

Well he's using paint which is what matters. All those other modes and mediums of art are jealous that they aren't paint and should be ignored. But I might be a little biased. Sculpture, sketching, conceptual crap, installation nonsense, "performance art?" neon lights and those stupid piles of random found stuff on gallery floors should be banned. They do mankind no good and detract from real art which can only be made with liquid paints on a flat surface.
 
Check out Ross Bleckner's paintings for glowing effects without fluorescent paints.
 
I did a search and found this

Best known for his large abstract paintings composed of vivid fluorescent colors, Brian Rutenberg forms his compositions through alternating heavy, impasto marks and thin, smooth strokes. The paintings can evoke complex natural landscapes like those of Rutenberg's native South Carolina or the digital age with colors intersecting like those of a glitching computer screen.

Now does this mean fluorescent paint? I don't know. I do know that there is such a thing along with neon paints and phosphorescent (glow in the dark) paints. It's all a bit confusing and I found this that describes it

What is the difference between a fluorescent acrylic color and a neon acrylic color?

https://www.quora.com/profile/Anuradha-Rajivan
Anuradha Rajivan
Accidental artistAuthor has 964 answers and 291.4K answer views2y
Here is what I know:

Fluorescent colours are also loosely called neon colours by some people, even though that is strictly not correct. Fluorescent colours reflect and absorb much more light than regular colours (more than double). This property makes them very striking and bright. So they are popular for advertising.
Neon is a gas. It is colourless. It glows a bright red-orange in a vaccum when an electric current passes through it. So neon is used also use to light up advertisements. But if you see colours other than red-orange in lights, then it is not neon even though they are colloquially called neon.
The colour spectrum ranges from low energy infra-red to high energy ultra-violet and in this spectrum the “regular” colours are located in the middle, visible to the human eye (VIBGYOR). Unlike the regular colours, fluorescent ones absorb and re-emit the visible spectrum and even beyond. So human eyes perceive them as much more vivid, almost glowing.
Here is a reference that may help: https://www.dayglo.com/blog/archive/what-is-fluorescent-color/
[BTW, though fluorescent seem to glow, they are not visible in the absence of a light source, at least ultra-violet light or black light. The “glow-in-the dark” colours are different from fluorescent and neon – they are phosphorescent where the pigments store the source of light and continue to glow for a while even in the absence of a light source.]
I hope this was helpful!
 
Thanks for that info John.

Were you serious about what you think is "real" art vs. that "nonsense" on some of the gallery floors?
 
Thanks for that info John.

Were you serious about what you think is "real" art vs. that "nonsense" on some of the gallery floors?

LOL no. Well maybe just a little. Should have put the roll eyes emoji. :)

But I admit that I am very biased toward paintings.
 
Useful info. This might be of interest to some:

Illusory Depth Based on Interactions Between Fluorescent and Conventional Colours: A Case Study on Frank Stella’s Irregular Polygons Paintings​

obtainable here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/artp/6/2-3/article-p116_116.xml?language=en

Cool. Thanks Martin. From the article....

Daylight fluorescent colours, on the other hand, are organic pigments, in which a dye is bound to an organic polymer and as a substance grounded into pigment (Streitel, 2009). These pigments absorb energy of the short-wavelength range of the visible light and reemit this energy over a narrow range of longer-wavelength light. When observing such a fluorescent paint layer, one not only distinguishes colour, but it also appears as if the material glows by itself. This is because the pigment converts more light than was originally present in the light of the surrounding area, which makes it appear as a very bright, radiating colour (Livingstone, 2002).


It might be fun to try some of these colors. Especially for abstracts they might be really nice.

And to further confuse things there is also glass beads that can be sprinkled on wet paint, like they do with stop signs. https://www.amazon.com/Standard-Reflective-Glass-Pounds-Frog/dp/B016FM3UX0
 
But I admit that I am very biased toward paintings.

I suppose I am too, but I admit, I have done a bit of installation myself and put things on the gallery floor. Though, not much of it. I also like some installation art and a little bit of conceptual art (depending). It really does depend. I like the stuff that leans more toward installation with a touch of conceptual. I am not a huge fan of performance-type conceptual art. That sort of bothers me most of the time. Though I have considered doing something with my drums someday if I could think of doing it in a "good" and interesting way.

One of the best shows I ever did involved a large multimedia installation that played a short film I made. It played inside a big camping tent on a vintage portable TV. People sat in lawn chairs to watch it. It had other cool elements too, but that's the gist. Maybe not everyone's bag, but it sure got a lot of attention. I showed it with a bunch of paintings in the next room.
 
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