Check out videos of the work here, and enjoy the 3D virtual tour experience.

Thanks to Gay Street Gallery for holding my hand through so many adjustments in this time of weird.

The fine folks at Gay Street Gallery in Washington, VA, say we’re still on for an August opening. In-person or virtual, this Venus will be on the wall. Happies and fortitude, everyone! Stay healthy!

This happy etching has found a home in Astoria, Oregon. Thanks to the art department at Clatsop Community College for their purchase! I enjoyed a fabulous visit to their annual nude survey, Au Naturel, a beautiful look at how we look at ourselves, by artists around the world. It’s an honor to be included again.

We at Rutz are excited to return to Astoria in fall 2020, when we’ll do our art-science show. Details when I know them.

From the organizer, Christian Gabriel:

“Having an art show right after the holidays can be challenging. Usually it gets lost in the excitement of Christmas and New Years. Please join me in the new year by kicking off this show! Acrylic Warfare is a group art show where Veteran Artists can show their work, promoting alternative therapy as a voice for change. Together, we can inspire others, ending Veteran suicide.

“25% of all proceeds go to @Dogoodmultnomah

Feel free to share!!!

“Always Faithful – Christian”

The exhibit runs Jan. 13-31 at the Rueff Galleries, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. And it includes several new paintings, including this happy specimen (detail of #salacia #NEPTUNE #aquarium):

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible:

I’ll be conducting a scientific study on site, so stop by and play!

My booth will be stocked with new paintings for the next version of my art/science collaboration, including one that can’t be photographed because… science. Come see it live.

Booth: O-07

A libertarian think tank founded by one of the Koch brothers, the Cato Institute gets its name from a famous ancient Roman conservative who fought against Julius Caesar to keep the Roman republic from falling into tyranny. He lost, of course.

When I saw this call, I embraced the chance to communicate to libertarian American policy wonks in terms the pagan Cato might have understood.

This series of paintings—icons of pagan gods as I see them in America today—is openly political in the sense that I hope it can help us consider the long sweep of history, our tiny place in it, and the many perils that come with tit-for-tat political myopia. Creative dialogue is the only nonviolent way out of our current national mess, so I’m honored to be a included.

Here’s the gist:

Opening reception: April 11, 6-9 pm, at the Cato Institute (1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC)

Panel discussions and more will take place throughout the show’s two-month run: https://www.cato.org/freedom-art-as-the-messenger

An Exhibition of Portraiture and Figurative Art

February 19 to March 7, 2019

Founded in the 1870s, the Salmagundi Club remains one of New York’s brightest spots for figurative painting.

Click here for more info on the show, the gorgeous venue, and the club’s many other activities.

We’ll see how they like On the March [Mars Gradivus].

INTO A STUDY [BETWEEN VENUS AND MARS]

Data Collection Event: Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, 6-9 pm

Ford Gallery, 2505 SE 11th Ave, Portland

INTO A STUDY is both an art installation and a carefully planned neuroscience study. It began in early 2017 when painter Paul Rutz called neuroscientist Amanda Hampton Wray with a question about how to study the ways people view new paintings. After more than a year spent debating, compromising, fundraising and building a stellar team, that question has blossomed into an immersive exhibit using state-of-the-art research technology to transform the gallery experience.

At the opening—one night only—visitors to Ford Gallery will become subjects in a special data collection event. Many will be fitted with biometric equipment, and all will be shown a series of precisely crafted paintings designed both as a coherent body of art and as stimuli for a neuroscience study.

This is not art inspired by science or vice versa. The exhibit practices both art and science together, which is no small feat! Merging the two cultures has been a difficult yet rewarding process, a dialogue full of give and take—and learning—on both sides. This is a growing niche for art, not only as a site for the artist’s self expression, but, importantly, as a guide for how to engage with the world differently.

Immediately after participating in the study, viewers can enjoy a Q and A with the collaborators and see behind-the-scenes video of how it all came together. Next year the exhibit will be tweaked before it travels to Purdue University and beyond.

A NOTE ON THE SUBJECT MATTER

Our symbols for “female” and “male” come from the ancient Romans, but they don’t reference the level-headed Minerva and Apollo, the gods of wisdom, art and self control. Instead they refer to Venus and Mars, the gods of sex and war. The “female” symbol depicts the handheld mirror of Venus, while the “male” circle with arrow represents the shield and spear of the war god.

Looking at those symbols on bathroom doors got me curious about our culture’s parallels to Rome beyond the political and military similarities. A quick online search shows that ancient Rome celebrated some surprisingly complicated and flexible images of femininity and masculinity, much like we do today. It turns out that Venus, the goddess of erotic desire, and Mars, the rampaging, pillaging war god, were just two of many forms of these gods. Romans kept making up new versions of them over the centuries, establishing new names, rituals and temples. Soldiers of the Roman Empire sacrificed to Mars Gradivus—the marching god, god of good combat—but when Rome was not yet so big and powerful many people worshipped the agricultural god Mars Silvanus. He gave farmers good harvests and made them into good fathers. As guarantor of treaties, Mars Quirinus precariously held on to peace. Venus Obsequens—Indulgent Venus—was the ancient Romans’ image of the perfect wife, while Venus Genetrix, the pure feminine parent, brought out the best qualities of motherhood in her people. (Julius Caesar’s clan, the Julii, claimed this version of the goddess as their ancestor.) Some ancient writers say the city also worshipped Venus Calva—Bald Venus—for motivating Roman women to sacrifice their hair for the common good, such as during a siege of the city when women cut off their hair and wove the strands into bowstrings to fight off the invaders.

The ancient Romans believed the gods drove people’s behavior. Personified in statues, paintings, prayer and ritual, Venus Obsequens was healthy erotic desire. When you felt it, you knew she had found her way inside you. The paintings in this exhibit show these versions of Venus and Mars as I found them living in us today.

FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY

On the web:  paulrutz.com             fordgallerypdx.com

Instagram:    @paulxrutz                @fordgallerypdx      #intoastudy

BIOS

Paul X. Rutz paints pictures in oil on canvas and carved panel. A former Naval Officer and ballet dancer, he holds a Ph.D. in visual culture. His exhibitions include solo shows at the Oregon Military Museum and several academic galleries, as well as group shows at Mark Woolley Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution. A former reporter for the Pentagon’s press service, he has contributed to HuffPost, Modern Fiction Studies, The Smart Set, and Cincinnati Review, among others, and he writes features for Military Historyand Vietnammagazines.

Amanda Hampton Wray, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor of Communicative Sciences & Disorders and director of the Brain Systems for Language Lab at Michigan State University. Her research program examines relationships between cognitive and linguistic proficiencies and life experiences. Her work employs measures of brain functions mediating language and attention processes in order to understand the development of these skills in populations with typical and disordered developmental trajectories, including children who stutter and those with SLI.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

MUSIC

Courtesy of The Go! Team, https://thegoteam.co.uk

SPECIAL THANKS

Ford Gallery, Portland, OR

Jason Babcock of Positive Science, LLC

Laura Annalora and Queens’ Suite

Brian J. Clark Productions

Dar Meshi, Ph.D., and Courtney Venker, Ph.D., of Michigan State University

Megan Heiy, Esq.

Here’s the key info:

March 29 – April 24

Artist Talk: April 14 @ 2 pm.

at the GUARDINO GALLERY
2939 NE Alberta, Portland, OR 97211
503.281.9048 – guardinogallery.com

Hours: Tues 11-5, Wed-Sat 11-6, Sun 11-4