Gideon Rubin: Mexican Summer

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Gideon Rubin’s paintings are replete with dichotomy. Their subject matter, taken from a found early twentieth-century family photo album, is unapologetically nostalgic – yet the work is not saccharine.

Austere and elemental, the palate is subdued, subtle, seemingly faded. Forms are reduced to a few sure brushstrokes that suggest rather than describe a figure or landscape. Identifying facial features are lost, rendered in a swirl or smudge of paint. Areas of the picture have had the paint scraped away or have never had pigment applied to the raw, natural-colored linen. Yet for paintings of such compositional economy, they luxuriate in the sensuality of oil paint. Rubin’s brushwork – energetic, thick and three-dimensional – is frankly joyful.

Figures of children, parents, a glimpse of landscape – the paintings capture the private moments of a family on holiday. With their lovingly rendered subjects, the pictures are intimate. What could be more personal than a lost family photo album? Or generic? Viewing these paintings might have been a voyeuristic experience, but instead it’s more like the memory of something that’s at the point of fading completely. Or like remembering a history that you were told about but never actually experienced. Though these are another family’s pictures, they might have been your own. These insignificant moments are the stuff of collective memory – the minutia that makes up the meaningful part of our lives.

Gideon Rubin was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and lives in London. He received his MFA from Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Tel Aviv, London, San Francisco and throughout Europe.