Wk4 – Artist Conversation – Fabian Rubio
Artist: Fabian Rubio Exhibition: Portrait Of An Artist Media: Self-Portrait Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Max L. Gatov Gallery West Website: N/A Instagram: N/A
The artist that I interviewed was Fabian Rubio and he told me that he was an undergraduate student. Although he is an undergraduate CSULB student he has an associate’s degree in studio arts. The program that he is in is Studio Art currently but he is going to apply to the Photography this semester. Fabian’s interests are doing a lot of self-portraits and exploring his body within the frame of the camera as far as the subject matter of his photos. The ideas that his work explores are issues of identity and creating some sort of agency or creating a space for himself to represent his identity.
So in this artwork called Portrait Of An Artist by Fabian Rubio it isn’t like the typical art that I would think of like a painting. This artwork involves photos within very straight, plain-colored picture frames and the texture looks like it is smooth because it includes picture frames. The color that was mostly used were black and white and this complied to the picture frames and the background of the pictures. The rhythm that I got from this artwork was that Fabian was doing a different pose in each of the pictures and another rhythm was that the picture frames and background were in a pattern of black and white. The picture frames were pretty tiny so I had to get more closer to take better pictures of the artwork and to see exactly what was going on in each picture.
The ideas that are explored in Portrait Of An Artist are exploring the binaries of gender expression, such as working through ideas of masculinity and femininity and where Fabian stands within those two spectrums. I didn’t really get to talk to Fabian Rubio about his artwork Portrait Of An Artist but I will try to interpret his ideas like for example when he said to explore the binaries of gender expression he probably meant the two sides of gender expression like how you are supposed to act as a male and how you are supposed to act as a female. Working through ideas of masculinity and femininity is probably to see what is the correct way for a male and female role and how a male and a female think differently and similarly. When he said that he wanted to show where he stands within those two spectrums being the male and the female, he probably meant that he didn’t feel like he was either a male nor a female but felt like he was probably both of the two different genders. These are the ideas that I got from him and his artwork when I was interviewing him but these are my thoughts of Fabian’s artwork and not his thoughts of his artwork but hopefully my thoughts are acceptable for his artwork.
The artwork to me meant that any person can do whatever they desire and it will be considered an artwork if it is properly explained to other people that look at the artwork. The way that the artwork resonated within me was that it made me try to wonder what the message was in the each of the five pictures and how a bunch of pictures can be considered a type of art. The way that the formal nature of the artwork and the artist’s ideas resonates with my ideas, perceptions, and perspectives is that it shows that whatever you make will be considered art in your own eyes and that some people will see it as art if you explain your artwork to them. The artwork doesn’t resonate within things from my life experience or academic experience but it did made me see that there are no boundaries when it comes to art and the experience that art gives. Hopefully there are more ways that people can express themselves through their art like how Fabian Rubio did with Portrait Of An Artist and that people won’t be bound by how society will think of their art.
Jorge Mendez Milian 