Carson Rauschenberg [SCH RA 2023]
Midnight Asservator, 2025
Oil

The artist describes:

“From the known into the unknown. And back again, in the same way you might tune a violin—slowly, carefully. My first work, Midnight Asservator, reflects that initial foray into the unknown: a search into the contemporary art world, full of bright colors, trendy subject matter, and a superficiality I eventually found hard to stomach. There was an initial energy and urgency in those spaces, but also an absence—something missing beneath the surface.

Shorn Guise is a return to the known, but also a deliberate shift in perspective. It’s a step back from the noise, and a movement toward depth. In reconnecting with the history of art. I began to realize how much of my artistic compass was informed by what came before—the quiet, the timeless, the carefully considered. Some things have stayed with me from those early explorations, particularly the realization that I no longer wanted to participate in the games of the contemporary market. The metrics of relevance felt hollow. The drive for visibility, exhausting.

Instead, painting for myself has never felt more urgent—or more honest. I’m drawn again to what endures, to the conversations that span centuries. I’m less interested in making something that screams and more focused on creating something that whispers but stays. This shift, from unknown to known, from outside pressure to inward clarity, continues to shape my work in ways I’m only beginning to understand.”