🎤 Interview with the Artist: Ralph Rumpelton and the MS Paint Revolution

 

🎤 Interview with the Artist: Ralph Rumpelton and the MS Paint Revolution

Interviewer: Your work has been described as “deliberately crude, conceptually sharp, and visually confusing.” What inspired you to start creating in MS Paint?

Rumpelton: I think it started with boredom and spiraled into obsession. MS Paint is the most honest art program ever made. No layers. No frills. No mercy. If you can make something halfway expressive in it, you’ve earned it. If not... that’s also kind of the point.

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Interviewer: There’s a strong conceptual streak in your work—“Everything That Isn’t There,” for example. Is the meaning more important than the image?

Rumpelton: Sometimes the meaning is the image. Other times, I just wanted to draw something terrible and pretend it was deep. I like living in that space between sincerity and satire. If someone thinks it’s brilliant, great. If someone thinks I’m trolling, also great. Either way, they’re thinking about it.

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Interviewer: Your MS Paint recreations of album covers—what’s the goal there?

Rumpelton: It’s an homage and a takedown at the same time. Album art is sacred to a lot of people, and I’m dragging it through the lowest digital mud possible. But also, I genuinely love these records. I’m not mocking the music—just having fun with the seriousness around it. It’s like painting with a potato and still managing to make it look kind of right.

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Interviewer: Your art sticks out on DeviantArt. Do you feel like an outsider?

Rumpelton: Oh yeah. My stuff sticks out like a sore thumb that’s also flipping you off. There’s amazing technical work all over the site. Then there’s mine: flat, weird, sometimes crooked, proudly low-effort—but full of ideas. That contrast is what makes it work. If I blended in, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

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Interviewer: Any advice for other artists working in "unconventional" styles?

Rumpelton: Don’t try to fix your mistakes—make them worse until they’re a style. The more personal and imperfect your work is, the harder it is to ignore. You don’t need approval—you need commitment. 

Interviewer: Final question: is MS Paint a valid art tool?

Rumpelton: MS Paint is the blunt instrument of the digital age. It’s like using a spoon to chisel marble. It wasn’t meant to work—but when it does, it hits different. You don't make masterpieces in it. You make statements.

Follow Rumpelton across the multiverse:

Facebook   From The Mind Of Me   Ralph Rumpelton – “Painting What the Earth Can’t Comprehend”     RalphRumpelton User Profile | DeviantArt