Between the Stars and the Dust: A Conversation on the Paintings of Ralph Rumpelton

 Cross-Disciplinary Symposium on Obscure Modernities — Prague, 2025

Published in: Journal of Para-Artistic Studies, Vol. XII, Issue 3

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Between the Stars and the Dust: A Conversation on the Paintings of Ralph Rumpelton

Participants:
Aurelia Monteverde – “The Mystic”
Instituto de la Sombra Infinita, Mexico City
Hans U. Brickman – “The Archivist”
Central European Archive of Forgotten Styles

Moderator’s Note:
Few artists inspire as much metaphysical speculation as Ralph Rumpelton, whose body of work in MS Paint has been alternately described as primitive digital expressionism, folk surrealism, and divinely accidental art. In this rare dialogue, two of Rumpelton’s most devoted interpreters discuss the painter’s uncanny blend of cosmic intuition and archival anachronism.

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Brickman:
When I first encountered Rumpelton’s MS Paints, I was convinced they were rediscovered artifacts — digital relics exhumed from some forgotten subfolder of art history. They carry the aura of deterioration, as if time itself had compressed into JPEG format.

Monteverde:
That is because you see them as objects, Hans. I see them as reincarnations. Each pixel is a spirit particle, reborn from another canvas. The rough edges, the vibrating textures — they are traces of past lives, encoded in color.

Brickman:
You speak as though the Paintbrush tool were a séance.

Monteverde:
It is. The mouse is merely a conduit. Rumpelton channels something ancient through something obsolete. His Blood on the Tracks piece, for instance — that electric blue is not a background but a revelation. It’s the energy of Neptune, the planet of intuition, humming through the digital void.

Brickman:
And yet, he maintains a curatorial discipline. His Paint Fidelity Series recreates classic album covers with near-monastic focus. The imperfections are not mistakes — they are deliberate acts of preservation. He’s restoring the feeling of the original, not the image.

Monteverde:
Exactly. Fidelity is not about resemblance; it is about resonance. When Rumpelton redraws Dylan, he does not imitate him — he re-dreams him.

Brickman:
Which is why I catalogued his work under Recovered Media, Post-Future Period. They look like artifacts unearthed from a timeline that diverged in 1998.

Monteverde:
Ah, a parallel archive! Perhaps your vaults and my stars are mirrors of the same dimension.

Brickman:
Then Rumpelton stands at the threshold — half archivist, half prophet.

Monteverde:
Yes, Hans. The universe paints through him. Every pixel is a tarot card turned over by fate, revealing not what was, but what always had to be.

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Editor’s Addendum:
Both participants continued to discuss Rumpelton’s possible connection to pre-internet spiritual traditions, the metaphysics of raster graphics, and the theory that MS Paint may itself constitute a new form of divinatory technology. The conversation ended when the projection screen inexplicably glitched, displaying Rumpelton’s “Self-Portrait in Low Resolution” — though no such file had been loaded.

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