Featured Edmontonian: Rudy Smith
Artist Rudy Smith during Art Walk, back in July.
Here’s an easter egg for all you superfans; if you’ve been with us from the beginning, you may remember that Jeff and I went to Art Walk back in July. Among the people we met was tremendously talented Sherwood Park artist Rudy Smith, whose work you can currently see featured in the flash player at the top of our main page (…and we’re going to blame our not having a proper picture of Rudy on his work – it’s just so dang compelling we couldn’t look away).
Only 21 years old and largely self-taught, Rudy’s work is vibrant and clever, features a multitude of hilarious pop culture references in its titles (“I suck at making up my own,” he says) and stars awesome and unexpected subjects like robots in love, cowboys, and teddy bears destroying cities with their laser eyes (I know, right?!).
“Anything and everything can influence my work,” says Rudy. “Music, movies, books, quotes, conversations, nature, relationships, other people’s art, etc. …Painting landscapes or bowls of fruit never appealed to me. I always wanted my art to be fun and action-packed, the kind of stuff I was excited to read in comics or see on Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid.”
“I suppose I’ve tried to capture some of that childhood excitement and awe in my paintings, or at least create some kind of escapism from the seriousness in life we often encounter as “grown-ups”.” (more…)
