...join the artist in Jackson Hole, WY next weekend at the Jackson Hole Art Fair, as he takes the brash, appealing, wildfire spirit of graffiti to spread a message about conservation. Or, take a step back and notice that: “Woah, he makes a lot of kid stuff.” This is the pointed observation from my seven-year-old son, who loves to drink Kool-aid jammers on our camping trips and declared to St. Louis-based graffiti-style pop-art painter, Dave Ruggeri, in our zoom interview in June, “I am not an artist!” A father of two young sons himself, the mild-mannered and kind stranger laughed. A pair of Chuck Taylors shine in acrylic on his family-room wall above a Jackson Pollok spatter of salt and pepper that hangs around his head. After some time talking to Dave, I became riveted by the rivets on the sneakers, and as I began to appreciate their realism, their artful silver look -- I’ll get back to it later, my first impression was that joy and happiness exude from this artist's own opposing and resolute declaration. “I am an artist!” About five years ago, Dave Ruggeri says he thought to himself: “I’d regret not seeing how far I could go.” Here's the spirit of an iconic tennis shoe to give a sense of what motivates this artist in his work. What was cool to him in his youth inspires him now, as he goes back over the iconography of his past. Right out of high school, his youth spent in a Chicago suburb, Ruggeri achieved his BA in Art from Kansas State, and then followed other paths. Though he continued drawing, he also pursued graduate degrees in Economics and Public Health, achieving his PHD in Economics. Degrees achieved, Ruggeri decisively turned back to developing his art as a professional career, taking on more substantial sized pieces, pushing his hyperreal drawings and paintings by expanding his canvases. He looks back on his first paintings as having a tentative or experimental mindset or motivation: “What would people buy?” He created landscapes: a birch painting, an old sailboat and a barn. But years before, in college, he was most inspired by graffiti artists. Keith Haring and Kaws, New York City subway cars and train cars and posters, a mission to make art visible and accessible to everyone that was interwoven with hip hop and exciting expressionism. These new worlds came to him through another vital venue for spreading visual art: the blossoming internet. These were some of the exciting memories of college that fueled his love of art. Ruggieri liked “the colors, and creative intention.” He felt the style was “totally new.” And like the memories coming back to him that he shares to me with still-new excitement and passion, his passion for creativity couldn’t be doused. But from an economist’s perspective, he entered the field with a sober confidence too- he views art as a business, and puts his goals in perspective, always thinking of the long and short term. In building his art career, he is able to pass on low offers for commissions and stick to his own strategy - a mindset he feels he wouldn’t have had if he was doing the same thing as a younger version of himself. The boldness, the breadth and balance I perceive in his big career moves, is reflected in his style choice. Dave was in pursuit of exactitude, of hyperrealism that apparently fascinated him when it all gave way. In a dramatic and decisive moment, he was painting a landscape, one that people “would like to buy,” when he just doused it – defaced his own art, and after painting over it, he gave himself a new canvas and liberty to create free forms of painterly expression that initially inspired him as a young student. So, he says, from that point on, he began honing his current style, of which, “people say they’ve never seen anything like it, which has most meaning for me.” Absorbing the tension between loose style and controlled executions, Ruggeri gives his pieces flow and feeling, showing that “you can paint outside the lines.” As a process, he freely paints his backgrounds, not planning, and allows the result to direct him. Then, with all his skill, he aims to create images with intense texture -- thus far, canvases for people’s homes – people who will, years later, notice new things in them, “like my neighborhood in St. Louis.” A city-suburban grid of murals, old homes, and color that rewards the eye of its faithful residents. His paintings are thickly layered and textured – full of potential, as he sees it, to capture light in many ways as it moves through a room. So, as I continued to stare at that pair of Converse, ever more fascinated by those rivets that were so substantial and real as to begin to stare at me from the canvas, the modest shoes hovered over the artists head, and amidst his talk of the trajectory of his career, from his family home, he acknowledged that many of his paintings reside here with his family. That the nostalgia of them started from a very personal place. Ruggeri remembers liking shoes. He remembers being a high school kid, and first feeling that shoes were becoming a big statement. The images of his own childhood, he only hopes, will strike others in a similar way, by bringing back happy memories. His economic studies allow him to see these icons in a new light- preserved if you will, and no longer completely attached to their original meaning. Converse, we recalled, used to be the cutting edge of athletic shoe, and now their status is changed. And Air Jordans - another of his subjects - I confessed - don’t make me think of Michael Jordan or basketball but rather status, money, Kanye West! Pop culture! He acknowledges that his subjects range from some more whimsical – Pac Man or other nostalgia that people like or request of him, to others of a loftier message – endangered species. He shares that he enjoys going on nature adventures with his family. With his endangered species portraits, through the bold color of graffiti and a deft hand, he aims to recreate the “Power and presence” that these animals have. Overall, I found that his main subjects - nostalgia and the animals - the energy of these pieces, the more I spoke with this painter, came across to me, kind of revolved around the same tension. And that’s part, I think, due to Ruggieri’s process, which he spoke with me a little bit about. After the decisive departure from hyperreal drawing, Ruggieri began to embrace the world of graffiti art with bold, surprising, maybe even challenging spray paint color combinations, yet still combining this with realism in his striking portrayal of tennis shoes or whatever else. He allows the unplanned backgrounds he lays out with spray paint to guide what comes next in each painting – to play a part in decisions about which image goes on the canvas. Furthermore, the artist works on several ideas for future subjects at once by journaling his ideas and returning to them periodically, testing them for soundness mainly by time, all the while working on several projects at once. What Ruggieri calls the “direction of his message,” emerges from this work. In his economic-sensibility, Ruggeri challenges viewers to think about the objects outside their original intended significance, and instead, as maybe, icons. I find the portrayal of these items to be quiet, static or distant. Nostalgia, the past already have a sense of distance. The images are displayed on whimsical backgrounds, so with all the color and excitement, there’s also a traditional presentation has a quiet singular feel. The emotional impact of these paintings is enhanced by the spray paint technique he uses as well as Boston Stencil adornments. Ruggeri likes using this lettering he tells me is a stencil used by police departments, and like his subjects, is iconic. Tersely and ineffectually, I feel, with a "big-brother" threatening aura that has all the irony and ineptitude of a catch 22 -- is it laziness or nonsense? The way the wall has been graffitied no graffiti atop the graffiti to remind us next time, with a firm and real threat… there’s that great distance, that gap, like a mask. Is it hiding a system of enforcement, containment, that is overwhelmed by its own massive and demanding ongoing internal conflict? The city is a little dangerous and confusing. The wall hasn’t been restored, just marked - again and again, his graffiti-wall paintings are adorned with the words “No graffiti.” The persistence would be more troubling if the everyday staples of our American life weren't hovering in the midst of the conflict. Ruggeri couldn’t stamp out or ignore his own creative impulse. He admires the artists who wanted to bring art to people’s everyday world, even if its necessity, immediacy and passion, whatever made it real… was illegal. The phrase public nuisance has come to me now, and I guess, the lasting pop art icons like Pacman or Jordans, or a pair of boxing gloves, are displayed on top of these backgrounds in either whimsy or a little bit of triumph. Then, on another track, his portrayals of endangered species, floating on the same washes of spray paint, adorned with stark, Boston Stencil lettering. “Almost extinct,” have a different emotional impact. Here, the stencil letters insist! in an abrasive, unflappable, and grouchy way. The voice in which I hear these paintings belongs to one of my favorite bike polo players, Bruce “Legend,” of D.C. One of the few senior citizens out there tearing it up on the hardcourt, a lifelong messenger, who grew up with missionary parents in the Philippines, has a bright, kind presence. He’s known to shout on the court, or bark rather, inane curses when he dabs or misses a hit, or a pass, which is endlessly comforting to us 30-somethings all quietly battling against our inner nihilism, and every single g-dang time there’s an open goal, “goal’s open!” he barks to his team, or even from the sidelines, as if they should already know it and already be shifting their position accordingly. With unflagging exasperation. He never fails, and it’s in his voice, I confess, that I hear Dave Ruggeri’s paintings barking at me: “Almost extinct!” Ruggeri’s different subjects resonate with one another- so that the quietly disturbing, maybe frustrating overlap of graffiti and enforcement is deftly translated - focus shifted - to the challenges faced by conservationists. Will they survive? Are conservation efforts in vain? My conscience has comfort because big brother has a hand in conservation, but then again, I feel critical of myself for maybe my own passivity and permissiveness, for trusting or being complacent. This is the way my visit to Dave Ruggeri’s virtual gallery (his artist’s website) leaves me. Digging into the feeling of a joyful, real and beautiful world. The animals themselves are sweet and colorful (even the Mattise sharks.) Dave paints them in the whimsical colors of his fancy, with warm but intense expressions. He has experimented with different styles, and always looks forward to change. Through their boldness, he intends to convey the fact that “these animals have a lot of power and presence.” This, and their threatened status are “something we should talk about.” The artist’s process, revolving around these different ideas - different modes of expression, gives his voice a thoughtfulness and strength.
Ruggeri has begun to see a series in the collected works we discussed in June, which, when I take them all together, seeing on the one hand, a stillness and irony in the memorabilia glowing atop graffitied canvases, a love, an attempt to capture a time period of youth. Ruggeri sees the beauty of public art and finds it inspiring and deftly captures the controversy and excitement of graffiti art on his canvases, and I also feel that he is developing an artist’s vocabulary and a distinct style and voice. His conscientious conservation art, with its urgent exclamations – Ruggeri is asking me to meditate for a moment on life, the wide world, and warnings I see but don’t always acknowledge or abide. His message? Yes, we should be talking about, not ignoring, these moments! His materials include: Montana spray paint, which is popular among muralists, a Detroit based acrylic paint brand called Alpha 6 which he has recently decided to try after hearing about it on a podcast, and some mixed media materials like maps from the Department of the Interior. He works from a home studio, which “like any other, is just a mess.” From his youth, growing up outside of Chicago, to his current St. Louis neighborhood, which provides daily inspiration - the endless opportunities for his eyes to discover some new angle or facade on his daily walks, the rich interest of an established city-suburban landscape -- a fringe-space of old, updated and new, Ruggeri is in the process of looking for a new studio space in the same area, with relatively tall ceilings, because his canvases are getting bigger. The artist wants to continue installing his art in galleries (he is established in NW Canada, NY and Florida,) and attending art fairs, which he often does with his family. Ruggeri says that attending art fairs has played a key part in developing his professional style, because along with commissions, as he pays close attention to the public response to his paintings, noticing what people like best, and appreciating passers-by who simply relate to his memorabilia art with a happy childhood memory of their own, he continues to consider the principle of demand. He wants to keep expanding his work and finding new styles. Take a look at his “Bison” painting (top) for an instance where he was rethinking his style. In the coming week, he will participate at Jackson Hole Art Fair.
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AuthorWe are Kieran and Michelle, two 32-year-old William & Mary grads living in Virginia. Archives
March 2024
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