Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Rabus.
Hi Jeremy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I was always interested in enjoying the world through a veneer of imagination- I could be an airline pilot on my bike, an archaeologist discovering the brick tomb of a mummified G.I. Joe, or a video game character with the power of flight, or a detective using high-tech gadgets to solve a case. And I loved to make the things I needed and draw and paint- particularly cartoon characters. For a four-year-old, I could accurately draw Bugs Bunny, with long, furry ears, tufted cheeks, big carrot-eating teeth, and whiskers. I used grocery-store brand watercolors to create landscapes along with Bob Ross. I fashioned puppets out of Play-Doh and papier-mache. In high school, I drew everything from Beavis to Ren and Stimpy to my geology teacher, and it was undoubtedly exciting to impress the other students. As a member of a high school club, Jobs for Illinois Graduates (JILG), I traveled with our group to Decatur for a conference, and one of the activities was to create a recruitment poster for JILG. Among the entirety of the students in the conference, including several other high schools, my poster was the First Prize winner! It depicted Uncle Sam in an impressionist mode, executed in Crayola markers.
As my senior year approached its end, I was resigned that there would be no college for me. Growing up in a lower-income household, I believed that the higher education in the arts I desired was unaffordable, and I considered a career in the military instead. And as I returned home from the ASVAP military aptitude exam I reluctantly took, chauffeured by a recruiter, I committed instead to a different decision that a life immersed in making pictures and engaging my rich imagination would be my career. Becoming a professional artist would happen by any means necessary.
After a frustrating summer of trying to learn appliance repair at a sweltering Goedeker’s warehouse, I began researching college financial aid. I applied for a Pell Grant and was granted full tuition to attend Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Throughout the five years, I studied fine art techniques and graphic design, my passion for making art grew tremendously as I honed my brushwork, color, drawing, and mixed media experimentation skills. My first oil painting professor praised one of my earliest works in oil, a monochromatic still life in burnt umber of a ceramic jug, a roll of paper towels, and a mug- comparing its quality to Vermeer. I also won some student show awards, received my BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) degree in painting, and began the journey.
I first attempted to start an arts organization in an old school in Alton, picked up a restaurant job, and set up a shop in my basement, experimenting with all mediums. I would collage torn paper, paint abstractly, draw figures all over it in ballpoint, dribble house paint over this concoction, and layer even more atop it all. Then I played around with gel medium transfers and installation and worked into the dark hours in the morning. Unfortunately, I could not gain traction, I recruited only a few members, and the building proved too dilapidated to repair and renovate cheaply, so I exited.
My first solo exhibit was in early 2015, on a frigid, snowy day at a cafe called Rhythm’ N Brews, next door to the Fox Theatre. Nobody attended it but a few SIUE friends (thanks again, Jamal and Marci!). Not even the massive intermission crowd seemed to notice the works. It was early in my career, and I soldiered onward, never ceasing to generate new works in that leaky old basement. In November, I curated my first group show at Koken Art Factory, a former paint manufacturing plant turned artist studios and exhibit space. I organized a tour of the space, meetings with the building owner, the pricing, the wall titling for artworks, the refreshments, and the security, and I did it all without a car of my own. Long bus rides between Edwardsville and south St. Louis made it happen. And it was very well attended, and one of the artists even sold some work!
Still knowing just about nobody in the greater St. Louis art world but familiar with a few prominent local names, I decided that keeping to my universe in Edwardsville, IL- where there was a thriving arts community around the university- was quite nice but St. Louis beckoned me over. I joined a group called ArtDimensions in STL and began attending meetings. ArtD introduced me to some of those names I knew and held monthly group exhibits that attracted a cross-section of artists from every walk of life- professionals, educators, hobbyists, people from downtown, South City, North City, the outer suburbs, and even the Illinois side. I also joined Critical Mass St. Louis, an online email group for artists where show openings and events were posted. I decided in early 2006 to post an offer to build canvases for other artists and seek a gallery job to generate more income and further network with the arts community in St. Louis.
In late April, I received a response from another Critical Mass member, who passed on the info of an artist who needed some canvases built and a part-time assistant. The artist was Alicia LaChance. I reached out to her, and she hired me. After a few stints helping her with canvases, wiring artwork, varnishing, and assisting at her Saint Louis Art Fair booth in the summer of ‘06, Alicia and I built a rapport. I was introduced to galleries such as White Flag Projects, COCA, and RAC, met several local artists of great prominence, and gained hands-on experience with gallery operations at Alicia’s gallery, Hoffman LaChance Fine Art, first a cozy storefront on Forsyth Boulevard in downtown Clayton, later moved to a larger space on Sutton in Maplewood, where it currently exhibits local and nationally-renowned artists. My studio practice continued in the Edwardsville basement at my parent’s home, among leaks, insects, mildew, and at one time, backed-up sewage. I eventually picked up a job at Bell Electronics as a dispatcher for technicians. This frustrating occupation lasted only one year but funded my move to a new apartment and my first studio away from home in a garage under the MacArthur Bridge. I shared this studio with two other artists, and it was cold and damp, but I sold my first larger painting in late 2007. However, the studio was temporary, and I relocated my practice to another basement in the next house my parents rented in Pontoon Beach. When THIS one flooded, I crammed the operation into the sunroom of this house. Soon I would receive an offer leading to the career trajectory I am on today.
February 2008. I met with Dana Smith, a local painter of post-industrial St. Louis cityscapes, and the many musicians who gigged amongst these cityscapes. Over beers, we planned City Art Supply, where I would be provided a full-time job, plus a studio for doing my work and building custom canvases which we would sell through the store, which was located on Cherokee Street. Eventually, I was let go from Bell. I immediately would be hired by City Art Supply, and, as my lease was up in my Roxana apartment, I was approached by a friend to be her and another artist’s roommate in the Shaw Neighborhood in South St. Louis. The schedule was set. I’d run the store on weekdays from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and work on art until as late as 2:00 AM, and it was in this studio on the right side where I developed my current layer-and-sand technique. I have been shown at several ArtDimensions exhibits, a cafe, a hospital, and an architectural firm downtown. I was also offered a solo show at Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts in October 2008, a one-night event with two complimentary Schlafly Pale Ale and live art cases. And the attendance was astonishing! Perhaps 100 people joined me, and four artworks were sold! Exciting, huh?
Alicia would exhibit my artworks at HLC in group shows between 2006 and 2008, and soon after I was established at City Art Supply in late 2008, she invited me to exhibit solo at Hoffman LaChance! My first official solo show at a commercial gallery is scheduled for March! Game face on, I embraced those late studio nights, creating the best, most exciting suite of works to date. This show, even before I arrived late to the opening due to a blown-out tire, sold 6 paintings. Half the work in this briskly-attended exhibit found collectors, and I had solo shows at the gallery several times in the years since.
My first international art fair was with Hoffman LaChance, as the gallery traveled to Miami to participate in Aqua Art Miami during Art Basel in 2013. And it was my first visit to the ocean. I cried at the sight of the greenish waves, as spotted in Boca Raton on an off-and-on rainy day. And then I cried again as I learned that four works had sold at the fair! HLC’s trip to Miami led to me picking up a gallery in Orange County, CA- my first on the west coast, thanks to Alicia’s introduction of my paintings to the gallerist Jamie Brooks. Eventually, I would show in NYC, Kansas City, Montana, Brandt-Roberts Galleries in Columbus, OH, and sell a commissioned piece to a collector in the UK. On the STL side, I showed at Houska in one solo and some group exhibits, Duane Reed Gallery, Benjamin Lowder’s Cherokee Street Gallery, and Mad Art Gallery. Art advisors commissioned me for custom work in Austin, TX, and Boston, MA, and offered a publishing contract with a company in Seattle. My career took on a new dimension when I was invited to apply for the studio assistant/facilitator position at Living Arts Studio in Maplewood, a community art studio for artists with disabilities. From 2017 until the studio closed in 2020, I assisted member artists with projects, instructed, entertained a little with my singing and celebrity impressions, and helped mount exhibitions and events. This experience was valuable for my role as the 2020-2021 Artist-In-Residence at Forsyth School, working with fifth and sixth graders on individual collage projects and installing 7 large-scale, intuitive abstract paintings.
Today I live with my partner of 14 years, Adrian Aquilino, in a single-family house purchased in Dogtown. My studio is right here at home, where I continue to make artwork, and I also am a teacher for Bread & Roses Missouri’s Youth Initiative for the summer.
We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
To declare this career journey a smooth ride would be inaccurate. Adventurous? Absolutely! Exciting high points? I cherish the memories of momentous accomplishments like the first solo show at Hoffman LaChance and 2021’s commission from Square, Inc (now Block, Inc) of an eight-piece sculptural installation at their St. Louis downtown headquarters. Many struggles abound when you come from modest means, without the inherent privilege of family wealth; I’ve had to work some interesting part-time gigs to fund my practice, such as koi pond cleaning, raising money by telephone for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and demonstrating high-end coffee machines at Sur La Table, which meant many free samples (and lots of strong, jittery espressos for myself!) Fortunately, I am supported today through sharing the costs of living with my partner Adrian and through sales, gifts, and donations from the arts community. Keeping up the work through the ebb and flow of inspiration when the bills and the dishes pile up, caring for three adopted cats, and maintaining a home and car remains challenging. I overcome the challenges by visualizing the full image of my ideal artwork and career success regularly, and I let go of attaching myself too firmly to the outcome.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I make non-objective, abstract paintings using an intuitive process of layering and sanding into acrylic paint passages. I arrange vivid hues alongside subtle tones or rich and opaque passages with translucent glazes. These elements overlap, intertwine, and accentuate each other. As the piece evolves, I grind into the layers with a power sander, revealing new textures, early brushstrokes, and stunning color “conversations,” which tell the painting’s story of its making. Every painting orchestrates the elements of imagery- hue, contrast, space, texture, and contour into an immersive optical experience in the final piece. With the chief aim of eliciting a feeling, my paintings do away with the specifics of imagery- although I am unafraid to allow references to objects or environments to carry away the viewer to a meaning. When I reach a pivot point in the painting- a visual or audible or gustatory or tactile moment when the viewing experience aligns with memory or a contemporary reference or even an inner physiological state- the viewer’s attention is attracted, absorbed, and their perspective is changed forever. In my most recent work, I include something of the making in the piece, a looser area of non-directed brushwork and color choice- to balance out the choreographed, controlled, and crafted. In the end, it’s all channeling something greater than the maker. My works range from experimental collages to abstract landscapes to inner self-directed, channeled paintings to sculptural installations and mural work.
Alright, before we go, can you talk to us a bit about how people can work, collaborate, or support you?
I am always open to collaboration. If one is interested in a collab with an intuitive abstract painter (me!)- to create an artwork that fuses styles, or if you are inspired to create a music/film/video production to complement my artworks, you can email info@jeremyrabus.com. I always welcome custom commissions; email for those too! And a few $ to my Venmo: @Jeremy-Rabus is always welcome; even little amounts can keep me in supplies. Of course, sharing my social: facebook.com/JeremyRabusPaintings and instagram.com/jeremyrabus, is a free way to support my artmaking; sharing with as many art-loving friends is a wonderful thing.
You can even visit www.jeremyrabus.com to see works and shop, and signing up for my email list at jeremyrabus.com/subscribe ensures that you see all of my updates, show announcements, and new works if you miss a post on social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeremyrabus.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/jeremyrabus
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/JeremyRabusPaintings
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-rabus-74045758
Image Credits
Head Shot Photo courtesy of Forsyth School
