The first, and solo art exhibition of American alternative rapper Kid Cudi has just opened at the Ruttkowski 68 gallery in Paris. The show was exhibited in his real Scotty Ramon.
Titled ‘Echoes of the Past’, the collection of striking paintings with flat backgrounds of pinks, greens, and blues is deeply cathartic. They feature the artiste’s avatar, Max, engaged in acts that range from the violent to the liberating.
‘Sabotage’ (2024) shows Max alone on a flat pink plane, taking a knife to his throat, drawing blood. In ‘The Watcher’ (2024), a diminutive Max confronts a large devil face that emerges from a blue field. Versus (2025) is a sculptural rendering of his painting Sabotage #2. The fiberglass work sees the grinning, baggy-clothed avatar with a knife-wielding form bursting from his chest, while Free, the happiest of the exhibited pieces, sees him floating above a cloud-dotted sky. The whole exhibition is complemented by a 10-minute song played on loop, ‘The Worlds of Madness’ composed by Cudi and produced by Ramii.
Kid Cudi said making music and creating visual art come from the same creative instinct in him, but where the former calls for far more manpower to put together, “a lot of pieces to the puzzle’, painting is just me and that brush in a room by myself.”
As a boy, the rapper had dreamt of being a cartoonist, drawing characters from the animation ‘Space Jam’ and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. That impulse to draw was awakened in 2024 when he put paintbrush to canvas, returning to his childhood hobby with adult eyes.
Cudi took to his reignited passion so avidly that he already has 50 to 60 more paintings, enough to make up his second and third exhibitions. He is also currently selling merchandise featuring Max, who graces the cover of his memoir, too.
“I feel it just confirms my sensitivity. I can have other ways of expressing myself that feel fresh and new, that are just as powerful as hearing a song.
“When I paint, it’s me articulating my past struggles, in the hopes that it could help somebody who comes to the exhibition, sees the painting, and gets inspired,” he said.
“People are used to hearing me guide them through the dark, and I feel like I want to get back to that. And the best way to do it now in a new way is through my paintings. That’s the type of artist I am.”
