Lydia Rubio Ferrer

Lydia Rubio Ferrer (born March 20, 1946 in Havana, Cuba) is a contemporary Cuban artist.

Artist Statement

Artistic inventions alter the sensibilities of mankind, and are focused on individual awareness… They expanse the range of human perceptions by enlarging the channels of emotional discourse. George Kubler.

Art is not only my life work it had been both my passion and my fundamental interest since I was a child. I come from a family of painters.

My work is inspired by poetry. Metaphors intrigue me; they are translations of life experiences, (for example flight as migration of transformation). I represent these ideas in two- and three-dimensional works interwoven into a language of my own.

Because of my love of books, I document my working process in journals. These books are often shown with or become part of the work and, as such, have become a number of important book collections. Sometimes they are the crucible for a body of work.

Being an artist in the 21st century means to me, adopting multiple cultural references and producing works that are united by a dominant conceptual system or approach. My personal interests and the curiosity I apply to investigate the means of expression and continuous change in art are more important to me, than being bound to specific media, a set of repetitive images or a static style.

My work is generally expressed in a sequence or in a series, which may include narrative, texts, themes, letters, or numbers. I look to understand the static and the changing, i.e., movement and change in imagery as they imitate transformations in life. The multi-paneled paintings of various installations allow the viewer to interact and, therefore, extend the work beyond the studio.

I innately understand space and scale, which has facilitated large-scale public art projects which include text, paintings, and sculptures. My sculpture is constructed, planar, assembled.

Through art I discover. Curiosity is the generator of change I my work.

Public Art: Art and Architecture

My training as an architect has greatly influenced my approach to public art commissions. It provides me with an understanding of architectural interior and exterior space, urban scale, construction methods and process.

In an approach similar to the way I construct my books, a text may suggest the spatial structure for the whole piece. Text may also connect two- and three-dimensional painted panels with sculptural pieces.

I respond to site specific conditions – the site cardinal orientation, existing landscape features or views, communal local histories and motifs so that the resulting installations, either in my studio or in the public art pieces, engage the viewer in multiple ways.

Biography

Lydia Rubio had been producing her work for 25 years. She has had 13 solo shows and 55 group shows in the national and regional public and private institutions.

She is a recipient of the Pollock Krasner Fellowship in 2006, the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting in 1994, and the Cintas Foundation Fellowship in 1982

Presently she is working on two large scale public art sculpture commissions, one for Terminal C of Raleigh Durham Airport and the other for The Woman Park in Miami Dade County. In 2002 she completed a public art commission by Dade County Art in Public Places of paintings, sculptures and text for the Port of Miami.

Her works have been published in periodicals like ARTNews, The Miami Herald, Americas Magazine OEAS, Harvard GSD Magazine, Hemispheres Magazine UA, Southern Accents and Elle Décor.

Ms. Rubio works are in the permanent collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Southern California, the Wolfsonian FIU, the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Miami Dade Community College, Bryn Mawr College and Lehigh University Art Galleries and private collections in New York, Miami and Europe.

She was born in Havana, Cuba. She lived in Puerto Rico, Italy, Boston, and New York, and has traveled extensively in Europe and Mexico. Since 1987, she lives and works in Miami, Florida.

At Parsons School of Design in NYC she developed during a three year period, the Visual Thinking Studio, with the Dept. of Environmental Design. She has been invited as visiting artist to several fine arts programs in the state of Florida.

Lydia Rubio was a visiting critic in the architectural design studios at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge for two years and a full time instructor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture for five years.

Individual Exhibitions

As a mid career artist, Lydia Rubio has been fully engaged in producing her work for the last 25 years. She has had 13 solo shows and 54 group shows in national and regional public and private institutions.

Among her personal exhibitions we can quote "Lydia Rubio. Projects Room", Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami, Florida in 2001. " The Alphabet " at Bridgewater Lustberg Gallery, in New York City, in 1998. " Written on Water " at the Joyce Goldstein Gallery, in New York, and Gutierrez Fine Arts, in Miami Beach, FL, in 1995. She has also exhibited with the Bianca Lanza Gallery and Gloria Luria Gallery in Miami Beach.

Awards

The artist has obtained various awards during her life, such as the Pollock Krasner Fellowship in 2006, the Cintas Fellowship 1982, and the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting 1994. Graham Foundation Grant and Research Scholar at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1975.

In 2002 she completed a major public art commission by Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places of paintings, sculptures and text for the Port of Miami.

She is currently working on two public art large scale sculpture commissions for the Raleigh Durham Airport and Miami-Dade County, to be completed in 2008 and 2009.

Education

Her education includes: Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Cambridge MA. – Master in Architecture 1974 Universit degli Studi, Florence, Italy. Urban Design 1970 University of Florida, Gainsville, FL. Bachelor in Architecture 1969

Collections

Her work can be found around the world, especially in public collections of the U.S.A, in Bryn Mawr College Library in Pennsylvania, the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Oscar B. Cintas Collection at Florida International University, Miami, Florida.

Her artist's books can be found at the Wolfsonian FIU, Rare Book Collection in Miami Beach, Florida the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, and at the University of Miami, Otto Ritchter Library.

References

* El Nuevo Herald, EXPONE LYDIA RUBIO EN BERNICE STEINBAUM GALLERY, December 16, 2001
* El Nuevo Herald, LYDIA RUBIO EN PLENO VUELO, January 5, 2003
* El Nuevo Herald, LYDIA RUBIO, SU PINCEL PINTA SOBRE EL AGUA, January 22, 1996
* The Miami Herald, 2 OF A KIND PAIRED EXHIBITS OF CANO, RUBIO A NATURAL MATCH, April 30, 1993
* www.Lydiarubio.com, Artists webpage, June 5, 2008