The Sheep Are Safely Gathered In

JD Rudometkin is a multi-disciplinary artist working in music, film, art and writing. His current concentration is in the production of multi-media exhibitions as writer/director and curator. Solo multi-media theatre pieces include “Ubiquity” and “Honey Venom” which he wrote and co-directed. Rudometkin’s work explores the ideas of perception and post-existentialist notions of consciousness—or, as French philosopher Paul Ricoeur states, embodying a “post-critical naivete.” His essential influences are the mystic traditions of Sufism, Gnosticism, Cabbala, his own Russian Molokan heritage as well as the imaginative writing of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Hafiz and Haruki Murakami as well as the oblique humor of Richard Brautigan.

In addition to a slew of music released as singles, Rudometkin has co-produced two full length albums with his musical project Step Jayne, whose award winning video “Send Out the Call” from the album, Here Come the Humans garnered the Jury Prize at the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. The musical project exhibits wide-ranging influences, from ecstatic a cappella Slavic ancestral music, to poetic troubadours such as Nick Cave and Tom Waits. Even composer John Rutter has been referenced as an inspiration. Electronic influences also find their way into the music, evoking moody innovators such as Squarepusher, Darkside, and Tricky/Massive Attack, and the industrial reverberations of Kraut rockers Einstuerzende Neubauten.

Rudometkin’s short film, “The Field and the Knower,” was featured at the Sacramento French Film Festival and his film “Sweet Pea” was screened in Los Angeles, Sacramento and at the Festivus Film Festival in Denver, Colorado. In addition to writing and producing solo theatre performances and having lead roles in feature films, he has been nominated for a SARTA Award for best supporting actor in a theater production.

In addition, Rudometkin has composed original musical scores for Falcon’s Eye Theater as Musical Director for the the plays “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade” and the Shakespeare plays “Macbeth” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The artist’s paintings and sketches have been exhibited in galleries (Los Angeles, Sacramento, Joshua Tree) and his work can be viewed on this site.

In 2019, Mr. Rudometkin and Alice Batliner curated the multi-media immersive art experience “Duende” in collaboration with local artists in the Joshua Tree area. Rudometkin and Batliner are currently curating exhibitions at Super X Gallery in Pioneertown, CA.