Cargo Cult

Senior Thesis Show is a series of nine untitled works that are very dramatic in the kind of lighting he uses along with the classical style from which he paints. All the works in the show emit the feeling of isolation and solitude. With a combination of still life and figurative work the paintings start to tell a story of why his subjects are so isolated.

After reading Rutledge’s thesis paper it became very clear to me why he chose his subject matter. He writes:

...I became very interested in the anthropological phenomenon known as cargo cult. Traditionally found in Melanesia, the term cargo cult refers to a native religious movement holding that at the millennium the spirits of the dead will return and bring with them cargoes of modern goods for the distribution among its adherents. (1)

At first entering this show the viewer is over come by the dramatic dark background present in all the works. Rutledge uses a very concentrated light on his still-lives which contain pink flamingo lawn sculptures or fuzzy dice. He paints these subjects in a very classical style showing all the detail and reality of what he is using to tell his story. By using pink flamingos and fuzzy dice Rutledge brings his subjects to the level of absurd sentimentality. These items take a person away to another place like a tropical island or nightlife of Las Vegas. They are also treated as sacred items in the other paintings, with four different paintings of figures in white gloves holding a pink flamingo Beanie Baby. The use of the Beanie Baby flamingo is chosen to contemporize the plastic flamingo to fit into our modern culture today. The figures are also very isolated in dark backgrounds like the Melanesian natives in their Western culture. Rutledge explains further by saying:

The individuals of my paintings appear in an isolated state; alone with their thoughts of a coming time. The painted subjects piously hold fast to their hallowed flamingos with gloved hands usually reserved for sacred artifacts, fine works of art, and the like. My subjects are members of the Western cargo cult clutching to their precious religious objects (i.e. fantastic personal dreams) with the same religious reverence that the Melanesian natives for their own physical Western objects.