MS Paint: Sun Ra - "Lanquidity" / "Ralph Rumpelton" Art

Sun Ra, Lanquidity (MS Paint reinterpretation, 2025)
A rare example of digital prophecy, where the crimson cosmos meets jazz mythology. Viewers report feeling both seen and ignored by the subject’s eternal side-eye. Scholars remain divided on whether the moon is rising, setting, or simply clocking out early.

What the critics are saying:

>>“In this crimson vision, Sun Ra is no longer just a man—he is an omen, a wandering planet painted in human form. The brushstrokes resemble the tides of the tarot’s Moon card: the uncertain glow, the reflection that refuses to stay still. Notice how his gaze, wide and unblinking, fixes not upon us but upon eternity. The folds of his garment echo the paths of comets, and his crown glimmers like the hierophant’s veil torn open. Here, destiny is not written in stars, but in pixels—each one a cipher in the cosmic script. Rumpelton has caught the moment where jazz ceases to be sound and becomes prophecy.”
—Aurelia Monteverde, Instituto de la Sombra Infinita, Mexico City<<

>>Dale of the Brook on “Sun Ra Lanquidity” (Paint Fidelity Series)

"A marooned invocation of Sun Ra’s ‘Lanquidity,’ rendered with the solemnity of a shrine and the restraint of a bureaucrat. The headwrap silhouette gestures toward cosmic reverence, yet the landscape remains curiously inert—moonlit, yes, but lacking rupture. This is not a jazz painting; it is a jazz pause. The palette whispers, the composition obeys, and the chaos—so vital to Ra’s mythos—is politely absent. Still, the signature ‘philly jazz 666’ offers a glimmer of ritual defiance, a stamp of infernal promise. Rumpelton’s restraint here is either a prelude to rupture or a misfiled hymn. I await the glitch."
—Dale of the Brook, Rank: Lanquid Initiate, Stamp: Unresolved Fidelity<<

>>“Sun Ra: Cranberry Futures” (2025)

In this rare reinterpretation of Lanquidity, Ralph Rumpelton reduces Afrofuturism to its most essential elements: one googly eye, one moon, and an ocean of maroon house paint. The turban, rendered as an uncooperative pillowcase, symbolizes both cosmic wisdom and the artist’s lack of reference photos. Critics have called this piece “bootleg cover energy” and “the album you find in a dollar bin that contains only static.”

                                       Doctor Norbert F. Vensmire<<

>>Gordon Weft on Ralph Rumpelton’s Sun Ra: Lanquidity
“Rumpelton’s rendition of Lanquidity is less an album cover and more a field report from an alternate cosmos where color theory has collapsed.The face, wide-eyed and oddly serene, gazes not at the moon but at us, daring us to question whether we, too, are simply maroon brushstrokes in the larger composition. It is equal parts homage and sabotage, and therein lies its brilliance.”<<

>>A Beautiful, Bewildering Rumpeltonian Masterpiece

This isn't just an MS Paint painting. It's a brutal, unflinching, and wonderfully flawed reinterpretation of a classic. You've traded subtlety for honesty, and in doing so, you've created a piece that is uniquely your own. It truly is a nightmare rendered with a spray can, and in this case, that's high praise indeed.

                                            Eunice Gribble<<

>>Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III's Expert Assessment:

"My dear dilettantes and palette peasants,

What we have here is a most fascinating specimen of what I call 'Aggressive Primitivism' - a bold rejection of bourgeois technical competency in favor of raw, unfiltered artistic Id. The artist has courageously abandoned all pretense of anatomical accuracy, creating what can only be described as a 'Cubist fever dream meets Microsoft Office suite.'

Notice how the crimson monochrome dominates the canvas with all the subtlety of a fire engine in a library. The figure's singular ocular orb stares with the intensity of a caffeinated cyclops, while the haberdashery sits upon the cranium like a geometric afterthought - magnifique in its complete disregard for spatial logic!

The background suggests either a Martian landscape or perhaps the artist's own psychological state after consuming too much absinthe and jazz recordings. One cannot help but admire the sheer audacity of reducing Sun Ra's cosmic philosophy to what appears to be a kindergarten finger-painting executed during a particularly violent thunderstorm.

In conclusion, this work succeeds precisely where it fails - it is so authentically terrible that it transcends criticism and enters the realm of accidental genius. I award it 2.5 out of 10 palette knives, but 8 out of 10 for pure, unbridled chutzpah.

Yours in aesthetic suffering, Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III, PhD in Applied Pretension"<<