Where did you grow up and how has this influenced your art?
I grew up in Houston, Texas, which boasts some deep-welled art resources: the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Rothko Chapel, and the insane Menil Collection, which houses, I think, the largest collection of Rene Magritte’s artwork this side of the Atlantic. But the culture was anything but art, or at least it was in the ’70s and ’80s that I was there for.
There was an underground group of people scattered around the city that weren’t as obsessed with football and church, but it took me until high school to really find it, so I was largely left alone to sort out my art life. My mum helped a little in supporting it with art classes here and there, but it wasn’t until she made me apply and then get into a high school for performing and visual arts that I felt like I found my people and a way out of Texas to the more artful New York City after graduation, and on from there.
What, outside of art, has most influenced you over the years?
I think movies, TV, and books dominated my art seeking back then. There really wasn’t much else to chase after given the culture in Houston, and the storytelling aspect of those mediums really shaped me hugely, and led me into comics and books, and now working in film and TV as an artist.
I think in some ways the lack of support and community for an art life down there was a bit of a book for teaching me to stand on my own, and carve my own path as an artist; there simply was no other choice. Sometimes the negative is what defines the positive.
Is there a painting that you saw in your formative years that changed everything? What was it?
Well, I don’t know if it was just one painting. I recall having my hair blown back when the Menil hosted some Francis Bacon paintings. Pretty much lived at that place, just down the road from my high school, and would spend hours with the Magrittes.
Ad Reinhardt was another revelation I found there, plus Alice Neel, Sue Coe, and Joseph Beuys when I worked at the Contemporary Arts Museum too. Man, I loved those exhibits and remember how much I loved being there alone with that work. It was poorly attended, which wasn’t great for the museum but was a gift to me personally. I had a very private and intense creative education in that way, steered by what caught me above all, and anything remotely narrative was especially grabbing.
Tell us about your first paid commission. Does it stand as a representation of your talent?
I don’t have a distinctive memory of my first paying gig to be honest. I’m lacking the framed dollar bill memoriam of that moment to seal it into history. Likely I was just happy to get paid for work at all, as any of us are when we’re starting out.
I expect it was after college when I was working as a home repair monkey in Brooklyn, lasting and positive. Even if your gig is a crisis gig for reasons having nothing to do with you personally, to be able to holdfast and still stick the landing while remaining professional endears you to clients in ways you can never really quantify, but it makes or breaks careers alone.
No one in this work I know who has a career now, even after all these years, got here from anything less than a stubborn, obsessive drive to never stop working. Hard work and relentless persistence outpaces raw talent in every way, always.
How has the art industry changed for the better since you began?
I think there’s a lot more agency in the artist’s hands than there has ever been before. We don’t have to court relationships that we don’t have yet as the sole means of gaining access to a career like you once did. It’s what made my Covid years twice as busy with work, what has allowed me to live, raise a family and work consistently while living in a rural town 30 minutes deep into the forests outside Northampton, Massachusetts.
The advent of social media has been one of the most altering things to ever hit our field and I’m glad I was both young enough to grip it and old enough to temper its use as an artist, because it’s definitely a knife that can cut both ways. But knowing for a fact how hard it was to get in back when it was high walls and gatekeepers everywhere, I’m grateful for the opportunities and abilities it has provided.
A lot of us, especially the troglodyte profiles inherent to making comics, have a hard time with the schmoozing and courting elite power brokers that used to be required to get in. Being in New York City, near all the publishers and art scene there, was essential in a way it isn’t any more. Now anyone with a connection can get spotted by an editor or art director from anywhere in the country. Just ask Jeff Kinney and a dozen or more other authors and creatives able to carve a path in our field thanks to this new technology.
What character or scene that you’ve painted do you most identify with?
That’s weirdly tricky. I think as a rule I try to make sure to identify with any character I’ve worked on, whether it’s a music video for Prince, characters from a film I adore like Kim from Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Naiches and Goyakhla from Indeh with Ethan Hawke, Conan the Barbarian for Dark Horse with Kurt Busiek, or getting to work on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.
My own characters tend to be the ones I connect with the most personally; Walt from The Lost Boy especially, Jack and Cooper from Meadowlark, and in a lot of ways all three of my main characters in the novel I’m working on now. If you’re doing it right, there’s bits of your identity in each of the characters you work with, create or sculpt.
Conclusion
Greg Ruth’s art has been featured in DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse comics, and he has worked on music videos, film, TV, book illustration, and more. Greg’s work can be found at www.gregthings.com.
FAQs
Q: What is your first paid commission?
A: I don’t have a distinctive memory of my first paying gig to be honest. I’m lacking the framed dollar bill memoriam of that moment to seal it into history.
Q: How has the art industry changed for the better since you began?
A: I think there’s a lot more agency in the artist’s hands than there has ever been before. We don’t have to court relationships that we don’t have yet as the sole means of gaining access to a career like you once did.
Q: What character or scene that you’ve painted do you most identify with?
A: That’s weirdly tricky. I think as a rule I try to make sure to identify with any character I’ve worked on, whether it’s a music video for Prince, characters from a film I adore like Kim from Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Naiches and Goyakhla from Indeh with Ethan Hawke, Conan the Barbarian for Dark Horse with Kurt Busiek, or getting to work on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.
