James Williams, “On the Other Side of the Bridge No. 3,” Mixed Media on Canvas, 40” x 60″
By Betsy DiJulio
In our digital world, in which comparisons are often linked with the negative emotions around FOMO, here you are expressly invited to compare. Intentionally juxtaposed to encourage a kind of mental Venn Diagram, the abstract work of John Rudel and James Williams will do that and more.
Both art professors, these artists met in high school in Winston-Salem where, as Rudel tells it, Williams was a football legend who went on to play in college. But he was also an artist, and his paintings were a “paradigm shift” for Rudel. Describing them both as “dad guys” twenty years hence, reconnecting has clearly been a joy that has inspired ideas for collaborations between Virginia Wesleyan University, where Rudel is curator of exhibitions and director of research and creativity, and Tidewater Community College, where Williams is chair of the visual arts department.
Artists come to abstraction from a variety of perspectives and for a variety of reasons, chief among them is often the desire to express ideas and emotions that are complex and intangible. As such, abstraction offers viewers something more subjective than narrative, though it can leave them perplexed, only able to dwell at the surface. Even so, when done well, that tip of the iceberg is a masterful manipulation of design elements and principles capable of eliciting strong aesthetic responses.
But, in the case of these artists, you won’t find the surface of their work impenetrable. As Williams says, he wants to give viewers “just enough” to feel a part of his colorful, interwoven environments and his psychological states of mind. Stand back and look closely, and you will begin to see recognizable shapes: a ceiling fan here, stairs, rooms, and furniture there. Pieces from this One Way in One Way Out series were an outgrowth of being housebound during COVID. References to bridges, ports, urban buildings, mile markers, and even Busch Gardens from his On the Other Side of the Bridge series were catalyzed by moving to Virginia from North Carolina.
Peruse these 2-D archaeological digs, many with an aerial quality and a framework akin to maps, and you will discover ephemera from the artist’s life like Starbucks cards, Xerox prints, and his old work, literally put through a paper shredder and woven into the surfaces of acrylic paint and taped lines. He uses photo references, but not a sketchbook, explaining that he works back and forth between drawing and painting, mapping his ideas directly onto the canvas.
Rudel’s half of the exhibition functions as a mini retrospective with selections from several chronological series. “I work in bodies,” he explains. A collection of family photos found in the attic of his wife’s grandparents’ house led to Archetypes. The wonder that surrounds the idea of “ideas and messages” in the clouds–“the great mystery of things”—was concretized in Cloud Forms, mixed media pieces of image transfer, spray paint, and aluminum tape on stainless steel panels.
Cherry Picking was his foray into “meanings untethered from origins” and rely, in part, on HVAC punchouts and adhesive letters. Next came airbrushed pieces from the Illume and Pairings series where he “untethers” himself from photos to explore the properties of light—both emanating and absorbing—while seemingly honoring spaces in between.
The work in Macro/Micro possesses a visual kinship with microorganisms—especially Rudel’s creation of a kind of “visceral skin”—while the Horizon series comes from a specific private place that precipitated what the artist calls “a preoccupation with horizons,” the result of a personal experience with liminality. Painted in layers that are heavily sanded, the pieces also serve as reminders of how deeply committed this artist is to “the archaeology of process.”
Throughout these bodies of work, Rudel is exploring visual interruptions, flatness vs. the illusion of 3-D space, and ideas that are both personal and universal. “Abstract painting is a bit of a search,” he reflects. And viewers are invited to join the quest through December 12.
