Unfurling Landscapes
2018
Since the early 2000s, Janet Ruttenberg has painted outside, in New York’s Central Park, on giant rolls of paper stretched across the grass. In doing so, she builds upon a tradition of en plein air landscape painting, on a contemporary, monumental scale.
Back in the studio, the 15 foot scrolls are opened up again. They shift, pieces move. A landscape unrolls differently each time like memory, or weather. In this studio documentation video, the artist invites you to look closely. To see what changes when you move something just slightly. To notice how one scene can hold many moments.
For Ruttenberg, the Sheep Meadow watercolors are ongoing studies. They often serve as starting points for oil paintings on canvas and large-format inkjet prints. The process is a form of translation for the artist, carrying something over from the speed of the park to one that is layered, built up, and remembered.
Wielding extended brushes and often stepping directly onto the surface, Janet Ruttenberg works with full-body gestures to paint on her large-scale scrolls in the grass. Immersed in the landscape, she treats the paper not just as a picture plane but as a physical space for movement and mark-making.
In the studio, Janet Ruttenberg uses tracing paper to transfer figures and compositional elements from her watercolors onto canvas. This process allows her to translate the spontaneity of her outdoor sketches into the layered complexity of her oil paintings.