Rodger Schultz is an internationally collected Artist from Washington DC, heavily invested in the exploration of the Self by means of the Artistic Process. "There is only one Creative Process and it keeps duplicating itself." This Process, he says, is a grand mirror in which everything you see is your Self. He calls Painting a visual form of math, conceding Art as "the Science of exploring the Inner", and Science as the "Art of exploring the Outer. Two sides of the same coin."
In 2010, after 18 years of Painting, Sculpting, and a long decade as a Professional Visual Designer, a rare spiritual event caused RAS. to abandon his entire knowledge base and to begin his studies anew -- fresh, from scratch, with a single red dot. He has since, slowly and methodically re-introduced Knowledge one deliberate and scientific step at a time into his work -- adding, removing, studying, honing, creating and destroying.
"It's been a slow process. My first flowers had straight stems, and I did three versions of them before realizing that I had to write the code for the stems to bend. I had to give them permission to bend."
"Painting at its core is pure Alchemy, and a high form of it. The universe can be reduced to its core by the blank canvas alone. You don’t even have to put anything on it.”
Rodger's work is an intimate exposé of his journey inward, every bit built on sound as much as it is color. "Art reveals everything." From the time of spilling that first red dot of paint in 2010, it took Rodger just 10 months to find the greatest thought available to the human mind, and "that thought he says, goes into every stroke of paint." Rodger even employs water based mediums asserting that water has memory, which can retain the thought.
His processes are intriguing and exciting to watch unfold for his dedicated and ever-growing fan base, whom he regularly includes in the Creation Process via social media. The movements from extreme simplicity to expanding complexities does not occur in a straight line however. Rodger's work is a spiral of reoccurring subject, merging technique, style and converging thought-form. "The only thing fixed is my Self."
His Landscapes are rooted in Post-Impressionism. His Portraits are illustrative modified with various classical techniques. His figures are mostly formed from memory and his expressions are industrial explorations of simplicity. In 2015, he merged them all -- and this merging will ultimately unfold for the rest of his life.
Rodger's singularly unique and carefully crafted Visual Languages include a multitudinous layering process that provides for arrays of visual combinations without end. "It's limitless. The goal is to paint with enough knowledge to make the paint do what you want, and with enough wisdom to not know anything at all. 'I don't know' is heaven, and 'I know' is hell.' I like to paint from heaven."
"The Science of it all come in the Seeing... not the mark-making itself. Art reveals everything, and the Painting is actually just the slow removal of the Artist. You start seeing that the Painter and the Painting are occurring at the same time, simultaneously manifesting. And then they merge. And then they disappear. When you get the audience to disappear with them, the job is complete."
Art means something different to everyone. For me it is the Science of exploring the Inner, and the direct path to freedom. Be alert. The Artists are here to save us, and Science itself will prove it so.