Collectors' Tip, Artist(s) in Focus, Interviews
August 26, 2021
By Eli Anapur
Art is a life journey - explains artist Anya Rubin. Art encompasses human experience and shows us its multifacetedness; we encounter all of its aspects - both positive and negative - in art. Art analyzes, dissects, and exposes this experience; it guides us through visual narratives of contemporary social, spiritual, and political conditions and shows them to us for what they are.
Anya Rubin's art practice follows her personal path. She traveled extensively as a child, moving with her family from Russia to Israel, Germany, and finally settling in the U.S. Travels made her aware of different cultures and tuned her to watch closely and learn from gestures and expressions. Before learning a new language, she used her senses to understand the world.
Rubin distills the swaths of data that engulf us daily into primary forms. Connected, they combine into familiar silhouettes, showing us that we live in a highly interconnected world. Her art seems in constant motion - forms intertwine, spots of color build on each other, background and foreground are often inseparable.
The recent works focus on portraits. They are pixilated, immersed in the play of color dots, moving between figuration and abstraction, in constant motion as the human psyche. Rubin foregrounds the thinking about constant change, the abundance of information, and human connectedness in a visual language of shifting and changing elements.
Recognized for her sensibility and skill in presenting the contemporary condition, Rubin is a recipient of several art prizes, including Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci prizes in 2015 and 2016. She has exhibited her work around Europe and the US, and thus far had several solo shows in New York City and Miami.
A new addition to an impressive roster of artists at Artios Gallery, Anya Rubin talked with us about her art practice, styles and ideas that influenced her, and the way the world and its tropes affect her practice today. Well-spoken and insightful, she gave us a glimpse into her personal story, thoughts about the state of our current self-obsessed culture, and post-Covid plans.
Left: Anya Rubin - Tatiana Eva-Marie, 2014 / Right: Anya Rubin - Selfie, 2015 © Artios Gallery
Early Experiences and Portraiture Art.
Widewalls: You moved quite a lot as a child. Do you think this experience has influenced your work in any way?
Anya Rubin: Absolutely. It has influenced my entire perception. Before I would learn a new language, I had to understand people by their gestures, tones, and the slightest change of their fascial expressions. I had to be sensitive to the cultural understanding of right and wrong. All this made me thoughtfully experience the world, using the five senses to understand and relying extensively on intuition.
Widewalls: Your practice focuses on portraiture. Who are the people in your works?
AR: Mostly immigrants, people I have met and was struck by something about them and their lives.
Widewalls: These portraits remind us of pixilated photos, but even more so of a pointillist approach to color. Can you comment on this take on your art? How would you situate it yourself?
AR: I was inspired by the work of Chuck Close at the time I started to create my portraits. The close study of a photograph intrigued me. Pixilated photos and pointillist approach sound right on target. I would say it's a combination of the two. Every inch of the canvas becomes important in creating the final work.
Left: Anya Rubin - Vella Bar, 2017 / Right: Anya Rubin - Fractal Figure Red Flower, 2018 © Artios Gallery.
Painting Contemporary Condition.
Widewalls: Certain works have an abstract feeling, with figures being discernible on closer look but remaining inseparable from the background. Have you ever considered moving to abstraction?
AR: As a primarily self-taught artist, I am fascinated by many of the great art movements from Impressionism, Expressionism to Pointillism, and certainly, abstraction, to name a few. As a contemporary artist, I have access to the great library of art movements; it will certainly inform my art.
Widewalls: Your work reflects upon the social, political, and spiritual conditions of contemporary culture. Which aspects occupy you the most?
AR: I am most interested in the spiritual conditions of contemporary culture. In a world made smaller by the Internet, we are driven apart by Covid, which isolates people rather than brings them together. Climate change, inequality, racial issues are factors that will undoubtedly affect us significantly now and in the long run. The development of an evolved humanity will continue to occupy me.
Widewalls: Your recent body of work explores social media obsession with self-representation. What drew you to this subject?
AR: I witnessed a world that went from phone calls to texts, from getting together with friends to seeing their lives posted on social media. I became fascinated with what made us follow total strangers when all we knew about them initially was their profile pic. It seemed to me most people were putting out their photoshopped best (erasing aging lines and hardships) while removing themselves more and more from the reality behind the screen and tainting our perception of the truth.
Widewalls: As you explained it yourself, an artist reflects what she/he has seen, felt, dreamt, experienced, envisioned. Could you tell us something about your process?
AR: I would say I am an intuitive artist. I enjoy seeing the transformation from looking at a given topic to photographing it then translating it into various mediums, each changing what I had seen initially. I spend a lot of time looking close up/zooming in, thanks to the computer.
Left: Anya Rubin - She Inspires, 2017 / Right: Anya Rubin - Hawk, 2015 © Artios Gallery.
Reflections on the Artistic Journey.
Widewalls: You received quite a few rewards for your work. In your experience, do the awards help artists?
AR: Being an artist is a lonely journey, and any appreciation of my long hours spent working is personally fulfilling.
Widewalls: What's next for you? Could you share some of your future projects with us?
AR: Covid has certainly changed our daily routine and life in general. I will be looking into topics that deal with how our environment affects us, isolation, and the interconnectedness of being. Covid has shown us that it does not discern between borders or race. We are forced to spend more time with ourselves as individuals, at home with our families. Self-reflection is a big part of this journey, and I want to explore these topics in my future work.
Featured image: Anya Rubin © Artios Gallery
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