Working from a small loft in an industrial park in Florida, Xpr Ludwig, 56, is an outsider artist whose compositions are fueled by life experiences. Ludwig is quite talented with a brush, but what’s most fascinating about the artist is his ability to empathize with the viewer. Though his paintings symbolize inner turmoil, he derives motivation through ensuring those appreciating his works can indeed see that pain has potential to dissolve into beauty. He states that darkness is just as necessary as light, as without one or the other - there would be nothing at all.

Ludwig is an immutable empath that suffers from chronic pain, and juggles both the nefarious nature of existence with inner beauty and conjured emotion. Through his compositions, it is evident that Ludwig does not wish to spread pain, but rather, make others aware that such pain does exist, and can be overcome.

His work, Grace, is symbolic of a beautiful sorrow. The thick layers of paint build an emotional impasto that is inevitably striking. The balance between the despondence and fluidity of enlightened purpose and meaning is impeccably accurate in terms of life.

Artist Comments:

“I paint out of a place of despair. My portraits are dark and full of trauma. As an artist with schizoaffective disorder, I mostly find myself working for my own mental health, and working not to be alone in my own darkness, and hopefully find a fellow feeling with the viewer. That allows them to not feel alone in their own negative feelings, and invites them to share and expand and speak to the human experience.”

“If we are consistently in a state of living in the light, where it’s always bright and happy, where we ignore and avoid our pains, sadness and darkness we risk an existentence robbed of the richness of contrast - hence the monochrome of my paintings. In my work I try to validate that contrast. To send some light to those wrapped up in gloom distress and pain; and to share that unseen part of the psyche with those who are more mentally healthy. The cruelty of darkness will at some point decend into the lives of everyone. That is inevitable. And in this, It is my hope that in a communal sense to share, experience and find a way through together.”

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