Pre Paris

Rudy Shepherd’s latest work explores the nature of evil through the mediums of painting and sculpture. This exploration involves investigations into the lives of criminals and victims of crime. He explores the complexity of these stories and the grey areas between innocence and guilt in a series of paintings and drawings of both the criminals and the victims, making no visual distinctions between the two. By presenting the people first and the stories second a space is created for humanity to be reinstilled into the lives of people who have been reduced to mere headlines by the popular press.

Going along with these portraits is a series of sculptures called the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorbers. They are a group of sculptures meant to remove negative energy from people allowing them to respond to life with the more positive aspects of their personality. It is on one hand a response to living in New York City for the last seven years and witnessing the madness that take place on the subway system, and an approach to political art that hopes to push the dialogue started in the late 80’s/early 90’s forward into 2008 by looking at the problems of society in a more comprehensive way, incorporating the rhetoric of new age mythology, and ancient religions.

Keep reading via RudyShepherd.com