As featured in Canvas Purist Monthly (Unsolicited Submission File 7C)
Interviewer (CPM): Ralph, thanks for speaking with us. You’ve described your MS Paint works as “digitally primitive but emotionally feral.” Can you explain that?
Rumpelton: MS Paint is the last true wilderness. You open it and there's nothing—just that empty white rectangle, like a cave wall. No layers, no safety net. It's you, your trembling mouse hand, and fate. Every line is a risk. Every fill bucket is a gamble. If that’s not feral, what is?
CPM: Your fans refer to your style as “Rumpeltonian Cubism.” What does that mean to you?
Rumpelton: (Laughs) That was originally a joke. Someone on Reddit said my figures looked like “Picasso fell into a fax machine.” I took it as a compliment. Rumpeltonian Cubism is less about geometry and more about memory fragmentation. These aren’t portraits—they’re misremembered dreams of album covers I once saw while half-asleep in a dentist's chair.
CPM: Some critics accuse your work of being intentionally “bad.” Even “joyously incompetent.” How do you respond?
Rumpelton: I don’t believe in technical mastery. A perfect ellipse is a symptom of corruption. If your lines are straight, your soul probably isn’t. I paint like a caveman with carpal tunnel because that’s the only honest way left.
CPM: You’ve recently painted Chick Corea’s Return to Forever. What drew you to that album?
Rumpelton: It has the feel of an overexposed photograph taken on a spaceship powered by jazz fusion. That’s exactly what I try to capture—blurry transcendence. I spent two hours trying to paint a brick wall in the background before realizing the wall was actually me.
CPM: Can you walk us through your process?
Rumpelton: I start with a bad idea and make it worse. I’ll sketch with the polygon tool, then undo it. Then redo it slightly worse. If it starts to look like something, I panic and pixelate it. The goal is to arrive at the edge of legibility, then jump off.
CPM: You've been called "the anti-AI artist." Thoughts?
Rumpelton: I welcome AI art. I consider it my main competition—and I’m winning. AI tries to be perfect; I try to be real. MS Paint doesn’t try to help you. That’s why I love it. It's like painting with a frying pan.
CPM: What’s next for you?
Rumpelton: I’m working on Mahavishnu Orchestra Live at Montreux, entirely in the spray paint tool. It’s going poorly, which means it's going well.
CPM: Any final words for young artists?
Rumpelton: Don’t wait for skill. Use what’s in front of you. If all you’ve got is MS Paint and a bad sense of proportion, that’s your truth. And truth is always kind of ugly.
Follow Rumpelton across the multiverse:
Facebook From The Mind Of Me Ralph Rumpelton – “Painting What the Earth Can’t Comprehend” RalphRumpelton User Profile | DeviantArt The Rumpelton Continuity (aka Zapple100's Grumblings) Instagram Ralph Rumpelton | Substack
No comments:
Post a Comment