Gary Ruddell draws on themes of familial relationships, depicting imagined landscapes and scenarios based on the small life changes of his children. The painter captures the human condition not from a sentimental viewpoint but as a slice of daily reality. He creates visual narratives connected to beauty, family, pride and accomplishments. His lush paint combined with his imagery often create what one ewer has called “poems for the 21st century.” -Bonnie Gangelhoff
With realistic and fully realized figures occupying landscapes that are blurred and abstracted Ruddell’s paintings are evocative of a memory or a dream. The imagery in the work is cinematic in quality, and elicits the feeling of a moment in time captured on the picture plane. Emotionally compelling and richly painted, the works reflect universal internal struggles while also indicating the need to simply have faith in the process of life and our relationships. “Art, psychology, science, to me it is all one and the same,” say Ruddell. “You observe, record and make sense out of what you see and then you learn from it as a vehicle to understand how we are as people. The paintings are not decoration, but marks on the cave wall of how we are as 21st century people.”
Gary Ruddell is originally from San Mateo, CA and graduated with a BFA from the California College of the Arts. His work has been exhibited at the Crocker Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art and the Holter Museum of Art as well as many other galleries
and institutions.
