Excellent!  I'm really happy that RR resonated with you.  It was a bit of an intuitive leap for me to recommend him to you.  However you brought out his political activism via his art, a logical relationship to what you stated you are doing.  Good job in observing that.  He's one of my absolute most favorite artists ever.  I've seen three or four (maybe more) retrospectives of his art.  The first one was way back when I was in high school, so his work sits deeply in my mind.  I think it has to do with his fluidity, he is constantly in motion, trying things, digging the process and not really caring if things are consistent.  He also exemplifies the idea that art is an idea first...a thing second.  It's a post Duchamp perspective that he carried forward creating wiggle room "out of Duchamp" for all of us makers of things.  A very important contribution to visual art.  

His work is ramshackled, funky while still being incredibly smart.  One of my professors always used the word "presence" to describe a strong work.  "That work of art has presence".  That's RR, it's like his work is some sort of aesthetic black hole sucking all perspectives into its poetically driven vibe.  Such great stuff.  

I was in a gallery in New York years ago.  Back then a person could wander around in the back rooms looking at stuff.  I was doing this and a small sunset painting, well it was more than that, but it was exactly that...a sunset.  It couldn't have been more than 9x12" in size, just a little thing.  I looked at it and it sucked me in, totally blew me away.  Yup...it was a little Rauschenberg...never have seen anything like it, It had presence.  

An important part of being a good painter is learning YOUR way so well (I do not mean style, style is anathema to a true artist) that your work is stamped with your presence, it is your humaness, your humanity and self shines through the bullshit.  That's how it works.  

B