Christoph Ruckhaberle

Christoph Ruckhaberle at Skidmore College's Schick Art Gallery - Christoph Ruckhaberle did a month-long residency at Skidmore, followed by an exhibition of the new stuff he made.

The public was welcome to come and visit to see the work-in-progress, during special Monday-Thursday visiting hours, which I thought was pretty neat but never did... LAME.

I did go to his lecture on my birthday. Some interesting things noted:

- He doesn't use models, all of the figures are done from imagination, but he used to do a lot of life modeling in college. He recommended that the "best artist to look at if you want to organize in groups is Poussin".

- That he is "always working for shows". He isn't just making paintings and then getting a show, but rather works from one show to the next... first looking at the space, going to visit the space... THEN stretching the canvas.

- He was adamant in stating "I am not a concept artist, AT ALL". That he is not working with ideas... "that's not how I work at all".

- I'm not sure if this was in relation to a question asked about the masks, but he said that he is interested in kabuki and Noh theatre (did i ever post my Noh pictures? i think i have to).

His English is excellent, I hadn't known that he did some early undergrad work (in animation) in California.




The person I visited the show with said that the subjects of these paintings are like "wooden figures caught in a state of time... frozen... and they are not happy".

Yeah, they do look like they are made of wood, like wooden puppets... and filled with longing.


Three Pinocchios.


Paint-spattered wooden dreamer.

I saw his show last year at Zach Feuer.