Employee Of The Month

Rob Pruitt, Exquisite Self-Portrait: The Artist, 2010, silk screen on canvas, 84 3/4 x 63 3/4 inches.

Vice: Hi Rob, guess what? You’re our employee of the month!

Rob Pruitt:

laughs

Well, you made the lovely painting on our cover. Could you tell us something about it?

No way.

I can’t believe no one’s ever told them.

Is the painting on our cover based on one specific Amish quilt?

And you use colors that are a lot brighter than the originals.

Your recent exhibit, shown jointly at Gavin Brown and Maccarone, was loosely based on Rumspringa, the coming-of-age period in which Amish teens are allowed to leave the community and go party their asses off. They either choose their new crazy Western lifestyle or come back to the fold.

Devil’s Playground

Artworks for Teenage Boys

And this is what one might look like, really bright and colorful.

Is that how you made these? They’re huge, almost eight feet high.

I read an interview with you where you said that being an artist is like being in permanent Rumspringa.

That is an excellent decision.

Oh no?

laughs

If you had been raised Amish and gone through Rumspringa, do you think you would have come back?

laughs

I’m surprised no one’s asked you that yet.