Rudy Ernst is a (Swiss born) U.S. painter, sculptor, poet and writer. His career marks the transition from the old (analog) world of European painting to the digital media of the 21st Century, and his extensive body of works reflects that profound changeover. Johann Rudolf Othmar Ernst was born in 1937 into one of the leading Swiss banking and industrialist families of the ancient patrician city of Winterthur. He grew up in a rural village on the River Rhine, near Schaffhausen, which belonged to the church parish of Laufen, above the Rhine Falls, where Carl Jung's father was the pastor and where the famous psychologist spent the first years of his life. While growing up among farmers, Ernst also spent much of his formative years among the rich and famous of the world in the Swiss ski resort of Klosters-Davos, where his family moved every year from December to March, just a few miles from the place where Alberto Giacometti went to school and was influenced by those mysterious tall pine trees that almost come alive as spooky giants against the snowy mountain silhouettes in the middle of a crispy night under a full moon. To be a patron of the arts was a given in the Ernst family, but the possibility of ever having the only male descendant become a full-time career artist never crossed anybody's mind. Which is why, after pursuing other activities (including a Ph.D. in economics), Ernst was a latecomer to the scene of serious artists. In 1965, following a horrendous accident, Ernst suffered a 32-minute cardiac arrest during surgery. His yearlong recovery would change his life forever and be the determining factor for becoming a dedicated artist. 50 years later, Ernst fully recovered and shows no handicap anymore when seen in action. That was then

...And this is now (2008 Action Painting).

Link:

Early on, and throughout his life, Ernst drew countless small, original, surreal line pictures by putting down his pen, but never knowing what the outcome would be. Those creative small icons have come to be known as his Dream Drawings, while -later in life- he shall do large pen and ink drawings of 30 x 22 inch.

During the second half of the 1970s, Rudy Ernst became a serious artist when he started interpreting his favorite Impressionist works from postcard-sized reproductions onto canvases of many different dimensions. He had grown up with some originals of these masterworks and was taught early on about Impressionist painting techniques. Now, the Impressionist Painters of the 19th century became his virtual teachers through the legacy of their works.

1982: After Camille Pissarro

Just as the masters had done a century earlier, Ernst usually finished these paintings within hours, or sometimes in a couple of days, using a very small palette of oil colors: Titanium White, a light Cadmium Red, a Cadmium Yellow, two different blues (ultramarine and phtalo blue-green), but mixing black from a combination of phtalo blue, red, and a touch of yellow, which was a (mostly forgotten) technique that the Impressionist masters commonly used. In 1982, Ernst immigrated to New York City with his wife and two sons and will spend the next 120,000 hours of his active professional life to become an accomplished, multifaceted artist. He started painting his own subjects in the very same Impressionist style as the old masters had used. But rather than doing landscapes, Ernst developed a personal approach by magnifying and distorting small objects and painting them onto his canvases.

1986: Pine Cone 1 Oil on Canvas 30 x 24

By 1989, Ernst has become a poor man. His art now undergoes a radical change. Since he cannot afford expensive art materials any longer, he begins painting and sculpting with inexpensive building materials, including roof tar, glues gesso, wire mash, etc. He attaches random objects found at construction sites in his neighborhood of Manhattans Upper West Side, where he works in a large studio space in a basement on West 68th Street, listening all day long to requiems and to Haydns Mass in Time of War. At a very early age (from about age 8 to 15) Ernst was sent to the highly respected painter Arnold Oechslin in Schaffhausen for regular private painting lessons. The boy also works at the metal foundry and carpentry shops of the family-owned textile factory, as well as with the blacksmith and two local carpenters and cabinet makers of his rural hometown. Yet, many years shall pass before Ernst realizes that, in the early years of his childhood, he not only had a well rounded education as a craftsman, but was also learning various Tricks of Trades from professional craftsmen in an environment that he has since come to call His Own Bauhaus.

In his book Sculptomania 25 Years of Sculpting -pp 88 to 93- Rudy Ernst remembers:

My Own Bauhaus

Well known artists are generally born into artist families and are discovered at a very young age. I was enjoying none of these privileges, nor did I exhibit any special artistic gift; and nobody around me nourished the farfetched thought that one day I would end up as an artist. All the members of my extended family were patrons of the arts, many of them supporting starving artists. Our walls were filled with valuable paintings, and early on I was dragged into many European museums, theatres and operas. Since my early childhood, I knew exactly what I was going to be: An entrepreneur, a money man, a Wall Street guru! This is why I showed no interest whatsoever in craftsmanship; it is also why I hated the assignments to use my hands for painting in watercolors, design and build furniture, do wood carvings, manufacture household objects in copper, weld metal pieces together, or cast special objects in bronze and other metals. In our small rural town of Flurlingen, in the northern part of Switzerland, where I grew up, I was running around barefoot from April through October among farmers and in our family-owned vineyards. My family also owned a large hemp and jute manufacturing plant at the top of the hill, where five hundred people, mostly blue collar workers, were employed. Since imports into Switzerland were very limited during the two World Wars, the factory needed to be entirely self sufficient. This is why we had our own metal, wood and foundry shops and facilities to keep the manufacturing plant in perfect working condition.

Under the circumstances, it only appeared natural to my fathers twisted mind that the only male descendant from my great-grandfather would become a skilled manual laborer. And what better way to accomplish that strange and noble goal than to force a child to perfect its craftsmanship abilities with Christmas and birthday presents of all sorts, all year long. Thank God, my teachers, Arnold Oechslin (The Artist), Brtsch (foreman of our foundry), Hberli (carpenter), Walser (metal shop and welding) and Alborn (cabinet maker) were my good friends and had more understanding than my father for my personal priorities, including soccer and a myriad of dangerous ventures. But when the family celebrations came up, my handcrafted works would invariably trigger such enchanted reactions as Oh, Rudy-Boy, how beautiful this bottle-carrier is, and what a gifted artist and craftsman you already are ! I couldnt stand such compliments, but wouldnt tell them that my teachers had usually assisted me with their helping hands, since I needed to be with my pals to pursue all of those other (infinitely more interesting) activities. * Only recently, at a MoMA Bauhaus exhibition in New York City, did I realize that I had been privileged to experience my own Bauhaus Apprenticeship at a very young age. Indeed, while familiarizing myself with the Bauhaus Movement once again, I realized that I had gone through my own Bauhaus Phase so to speak: From about age seven all the way up to my late teens I remembered having learned the trades of metal- and woodworks early on in life. But the idea of using those devices to create artworks had never crossed my mind.

Long after our move to New York City, in 1982, and my decision to focus on creating art, I became aware that those manual skills had long ago become a part of me. I suddenly discovered that I knew how to weld and cut metal, cut, sand down and glue wood, work with ropes, strings, burlap and cardboard, use tar, gesso, canvas and wires, plant nails and screws with hammer and screwdriver, and -last, but not least- I appeared to have real knowledge and a natural talent for assembling and sculpting them into art pieces. Here in Manhattan I found a myriad of wonderful objects that I could use to make complex works of art. It also dawned on me that I had been involved in construction throughout my life, and had knowledge about concrete, cement, plaster, paint, brickwork, carpentry, and trimmings: You name it. Suddenly, out of the blue, things were falling into place. I had long ago acquired all the necessary skills to become an accomplished artist and -more specifically- a sculptor.

*

In 1988, when I built my new artist studio in southwest Virginia, I suddenly realized that this was an extension of the Bauhaus-Memories that I had grown up with.

In May of 1989, Ernsts beloved German Mother-in-Law dies in his arms. She leaves behind a large inventory of hand-spun and -woven family linen that he begins to use for his series of Humanoid Sculptures that he shall continue to create for the next 25 years. Later, he shall remember this period as the most intense of his artistic career. Ernsts Dark Period also marks the beginning of his ability to break through his controlling mind that gets in the way of his spontaneous creations. He now creates his pieces directly from what he calls his Guts, his subconscious level, thus becoming his own observer of what happens in the artistic process. It is in disbelief that he suddenly realizes how his new works have not only become dark and monochrome, but carry distinct religious elements, of which he has been unaware, since -in spite of his upbringing- Ernst has never been a religious person. A question arises: Are we all carrying deep within an intense longing for beauty and harmony that appear to be common denominators in all human cultures that we came to discover for the past thirty thousand years?

1991 Venetian Night 24 x 36

Beginning of Rudy Ernsts Digital Works (1996/97) During the early 1990s the world begins to become digitized. Ernst, who grew up with slide rulers and multiplication tables, has had a lifelong fascination with technological advancements. He now begins to learn and integrate the new digital technologies into his traditional artworks. His son, Rudi Jr., who became the director of the ABC/Disney New Media Center in New York City, helps him computerizing his first multi-media art installation, Project Mysterialism, which shall become a part of Ernst's series Between Spirit and Matter. In 1997, Rudy Ernst creates his first animated digital film, The Odyssey, created on an SGI Computer with the help of his friend Bill Shepard. That same year he joins ArtNet as one of its first customers.

Computer Aided Art (CAA) (2002-2009) By the turn of the Century, Ernst has become fully computer literate. He is fluent in the Photoshop computer program and does a series of 200 unique computer-manipulated images of his own traditional artwork, which he exhibits in several prime New York spaces and at the Kodak Company Headquarters in Rochester, New York. He calls his technique Computer Aided Art, or CAA.

1997: Odyssey Mountain

2002 Ice Dance

2003 Night View of Ernsts Park Ave Exhibition at 55th St. New York

Sculptomania (1989-2015) While his first sculptures reach as far back as 1989 (into his Dark Period) Rudy Ernst revisits his work on the Abstract Human Figure around 2008. It is his philosophical and artistic response to the collective hypes of our modern world, which has reached every corner of our lives, including the price hypes of the worldwide art markets. Rudy Ernsts humanoid sculptures have sometimes been shrugged off as an attempt to copy the tall figures of Alberto Giacometti. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ernst has been a lifelong idea generator in every field he ever worked in, and never a copyist. He goes as far as pointing his finger at many of his artist friends who copy their own style by giving in to the marketing dictates of repetitiveness, in order to achieve high commercial values for their art pieces. Giacometti and Ernst have both grown up just a few miles from each other and have been profoundly influenced by their common natural environment. Whats more, Ernsts humanoids are the result of his long-held philosophical views of human evolution. Indeed, back in the 1980s, Ernst did a series of sound recordings with his artist friend, Charles K. Lassiter, at the Philip Glass Studio in Manhattan, that begins with the following question: My friend, there have been 80,000 generations of human beings before you, and of those generations, only one eighth of one percent have been living within the past 2,000 years. My friend, I ask you: Where do you come from, where are you going where ARE you? Ernsts abstract humanoids have no arms, and are not even standing on two legs. They are but a vague abstraction of the human body as a reflection of Ernsts philosophical thoughts. Here below are some of those humanoids in bronze and in their initial stages:

Final Cut Pro and Soundscape Symphonies (2002-Present) In 2002, Ernst also takes on the difficult task of becoming literate and familiarizing himself with the professional filmmaking tools of Final Cut Pro. It is an endeavor that will take him several years to accomplish, but creates a foundation for directing, shooting and edit his own films and to compose music. Since 1994, Ernst has composed a series of musical Soundscape pieces (musique concrte) on his computer, the latest of which is a 21-minute composition that he calls Sound Symphony of my Life and which can be heard on Youtube. By 2005, Rudy Ernst has achieved his goal of becoming an accomplished multi-media Artist. He has become comfortable in many different media, including mural works of super-large dimensions, and he now navigates freely among them. Rudy Ernsts 2008 retrospect exhibition of Small is BIG at the QCC Museum/Gallery of the City University of New York bears testimony of his achievements in the fields of paintings, drawings, sculpting, Computer Aided Art, and Soundscapes. Here is the Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V3duKcwdkQ&feature=youtube

Back to traditional Abstract works (2013-2015) Now that Rudy Ernst has become comfortable in his daily use of new technologies, he feels every bit as comfortable moving back and forth from and to his traditional works of sculptures and paintings, often applying his technological knowhow to the creation of pictures and videos to record his artistic creations. During the past three years, Ernst has produced a great number of abstract works in Acrylics, a painting material that he particularly likes for its fast drying properties. At the beginning of 2015, Ernst is working on his second consecutive Catalogue Raisonn, as well as on a number of videos (MP4) and sound recordings (MP3) that he shares on YouTube with a wider audience. The prominent QCC Art Gallery / Museum (New York City University) and its director, Dr. Faustino Quintanilla, have been tremendously helpful by publishing Ernsts work catalogues. Here are two of Rudy Ernsts recent Abstract Paintings:

2013: 13-LAP #15 Multi Media on Canvas 2013: 13-LAP #5 Multi Media on Canvas 20 x 16 30 x 27

Ernsts Action Paintings (2008 to Present) During the past thirty years of his life as an artist, Rudy Ernst has increasingly learned that the only way his paintings can have artistic value is to Paint from the Guts, as he has come to call his technique. The minute he involves his thought process, he ruins the quality of his work. It took him many years to achieve this present stage of working intuitively, but after an initial dependence on a few glasses of wine to break through the barrier of his subconscious level, he has now reached a point where the brain is no longer getting in the way of his artistic creations. The many Action Paintings Ernst has performed in recent years are part of this natural evolution process. And so, in 2009, Ernst does a series of Action Paintings on super large canvases, including one of 80 feet in length and 83-inch high, which he paints in just 90 minutes at the fabulous QCC Art Museum/Gallery of the City University of New York. His action paintings originally pay tribute to his idea of Dadanomics, by writing into his artwork the actual number of the worldwide economic derivatives in 2009 of 485 trillion 748 billion 296 million 478 thousand 325 dollars and 78 cents. Here is that link again:

A self-proclaimed Dadaist (2008-2011) With a Ph.D. in economics under his belt, Ernst has become increasingly worried about the growing discrepancy between the economic realities and what he calls the Dadanomics of our global economy. Suffice it to say that, between 2009 and 2015, the global Financial Derivative markets have increased from about 500 to 700 trillion dollars, and the (unfunded) debt of the United States Government now stands at about 4 times the countrys annual GDP. In 2008, these scary facts have prompted Rudy Ernst to become a self-proclaimed Dadaist. He rediscovers and reshapes the word Dada to fit his own views of the Universe, realizing that it applies retroactively to many of his more recent nonsensical surreal artworks. And so, in 2009, Ernst writes his book The Story of Dada

Ernst as a Writer, Philosopher and Poet As far back as he can remember, Rudy Ernst has been wondering about the Origins and Meanings of Life. During his school years and in his leisure time he had formally studied the teachings of most philosophers throughout history, but to this day, his selective memory steadfastly refuses to recall the encyclopedic knowledge of all those great thinkers, rather incorporating their theories into his own views about Life and the Universe, which has always been greatly influenced by that incomprehensible notion of Infinity that escapes the human mind. For many years, Ernst has also been a feverish writer. He has been living in many radically different cultures and economic segments of human society. Being fluent in German, French, English and Spanish, he is also intimately familiar with these cultures. Rudy Ernsts uniquely diverse life experiences are not only reflected in his art, but also in his spiritual thoughts, writings, and in his German poetry. In 2015, Ernst is about to publish his third German poetry book.

About Rudy Ernst Contact Address: 119 West 72nd Street, New York, NY 10023 T. 212-769 1800 Mobile 917-776-6558 Virginia Studio: Box 212, Union Hall, VA 24176 E-Mail: Rudy@RudyErnst.com Education and Exhibitions Born in Zurich, Switzerland, 1937 Lives and works in New York City and in southwest Virginia Grew up in Flurlingen, Switzerland. 1947-1957 Studied painting with two local artists: Arnold Oechslin and Werner Schaad 1945-1953 Learned carpentry and metal works, including welding in family owned factory (his own Bauhaus) Education 1964 Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland 1973-81 Studied and interpreted Old Masters and Impressionist Painters on canvas, Zurich, Switzerland 1989 Studied with Michael Irmer in Dusseldorf, Germany 1993 Studied Etching and Monoprint Techniques at the State University of New York 1991-08 Studied the integration of personal art into the digital techniques of Video Toaster, SGI 3-D modeling, Photoshop and Final Cut Pro with Bill Sheppard (J. Walter Thompson), Rudi Ernst Jr. (Director, ABC New Media Center) and Ryan Servant (Air-Sea-Land Production Studios) Awards 2009 Midtown Arts Districts Association Grant, NY Selected Solo Exhibitions 2011 Rudy Ernst The Large Dream Drawings - QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2010 Dawn of the Digital Age - QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2009 Breaking News - Multimedia Exhibition & Performance, New Art Center, New York, NY 2009 Dada Action Painting QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2008 Small is BIG - QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2006 Filling Void - New Art Center, New York, NY 2003/5 City Light - JP Morgan Chase, Park Avenue Branch, New York, NY 2003/5 Computer Aided Art - 410 Park Avenue Alternative Space, New York, NY Computer Aided Art- Kodak Headquarters, Rochester, NY 2001 Computer Aided Art - Perspective Galleries, Hardy, VA

2001 Computer Aided Art - Zurich and Glarus, Switzerland 2001 Computer Aided Art - Barcelona, Spain 1999 Structures (Textures) - Galerie Reinold Ketelbuters, Sablon, Brussels, Belgium 1997 Project Mysterialism - sculpture, painting and new media installation, in Collaboration with the Electrical Engineering Department (Dr. Alan Peters) of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 1992 Impressionist Reflections - Putnam Trust Bank, Riverside, CT 1989 Virginia Impressions - Piedmont Art Museum, Martinsville, VA 1988 Othmar Impressions, Morin Miller Gallery, catalogue with an essay by Sandra Hochman, New York, NY Selected Group Exhibitions 2009 Artexpo New York 2009 - Javits Center, New York, NY 2008 CAN (Contemporary Artists Network), New York, NY 1999 Pocket Art - Roxis Art Gallery, Hamburg, Germany 1998 JubilArt Exhibition in Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel, Jerusalem 1998 Artists For Gardens - Benefit Show, The Puck Building, New York, NY 1993 State of The Art 93, Convention Center, Boston, MA 1992 Annual Art Show, Greenwich Art Society, Greenwich, CT 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in Trbes, France 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in Rodez, France 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in Castelnaudary, France 1988 Wacko Drawings - Morin Miller Galleries, New York, NY 1986 Washington Heights Art Show, Fort Tryon Park, New York, NY 1985 North Gallery of the American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY 1985 Washington Heights Art Show, public space, New York, NY Videography 1996-09 The Universe of Rudy Ernst - featuring paintings, sculptures, films and writings 2001-03 The Fulton Fish Market - documentary (approx. 80 minutes) 2008 Small is Big - April 18, 2008, opening at the QCC Gallery. Written, directed and edited by Rudy Ernst, performance by Al Rodriguez, photography by Arpi Pap (5 minutes) 2008 The Art of Rudy Ernst - a video compilation since 1991 (17 minutes) 2004 The North American Lobster Pine - (4 minutes) 1998-13 Personal Website: www.RudyErnst.com 2013 Personal Website for German Poetry: http://DasDeutscheGedicht.com Audio Projects 2008 Dada Symphony of Life (21 minutes) 1996 Othmars Third - computer generated sound symphony by Rudy Ernst (11 minutes) 1995 God is Random w/ Charles K. Lassiter, recorded at Philip Glass Studios, New York, NY (6 minutes)

1995 Othmars Second - computer generated sound symphony by Rudy Ernst (approx. 6 minutes) 1994 Othmars First - computer generated sound symphony by Rudy Ernst (10 minutes) Selected Reviews Arts/Antiques/Auctions Project Mysterialism - September, 1999 Brohman, Susan Secrets to Long Life: Art, Fish and 93 Octane - Pontiac Performance, Summer 2004 Cimino, Joanna, The Mysterialism of Rudolph Othmar Ernst - State of the Art 93, An Introduction Fitzgerald, Denis Artist Explores Media, Both Big And Small - Queens Chronicle, May 8, 2008 Hochman, Sandra, Othmar Ernst - A Profile, Catalogue, Morin Miller Galleries, 1988 Image King Visual Solutions, Fine Art Exhibit, 2004 Pain, Lee Oils by Rudolf Ernst in Riverside Reflect Impressionism - Greenwich Times, October 1st, 1992 Peters, Richard Alan II, Project Mysterialism, The Art of Rudolf Othmar Ernst, A Joint Venture with the Image Processing and Computer Vision Research Laboratories, Department of Electrical Engineering - Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, Paper of March 23,1994 Von Kreitor, Nikolaj The Return of Romanticism - The Paintings of Othmar Ernst Wepman, Dennis Othmar Ernst Reinvents Nature - Manhattan Arts, February 1988 Washington Heights Art Show Periodical, November 1986 Published Books by Rudy Ernst (Available at www.Amazon.com) 2009 The Story of Dada and how to activate your Dada-Gene. Art history book, published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2010 Magic - Computer Aided Art (CAA) published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 Anatomy of a Dada Mind - Drawings, Writings, Sculptures - published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 SCULPTOMANIA - 25 Years of Sculpting published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 New York West Side Stories - Funny Stories from the Upper West Side published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 Kurz belichtet und verdichtet a selection of German Poetry, New York, NY 2011 Lmmelgeschichten - Ungeschminkt - German Childhood Stories of a tramp, published by Frankfurter Verlagsgruppe (Public Book Media Verlag) Frankfurt a/M, Germany 2012 Journey into the Digital Age - Rudy Ernst: Journey of an artistic evolution, published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2012 The Ribbons of Fame - If historys great masters of paintings were alive today published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY

Selected Collections City of New York, New York, NY Dr. Arman Roksar, New York, NY Drs. Marika and Thomas Herskovic, Franklin Lakes, NJ Israel Government Coins & Medals Corp. Ltd., Jerusalem, Israel Kodak Corporate Collection, Rochester, NY Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland Muse de Bgles, Bordeaux, France Alex Nyerges, Director, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Charles V. Payne, Wall Street & Fox Business News Piedmont Art Museum, Martinsville, VA QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY