Gideon Rubin, born in Tel Aviv, Israel, usually takes his inspiration from magazine photos and vintage albums. Sad children, lonely boys and girls, naked women, girls with high ponytailed hair and figures turned back are the subjects he often depicts. Childhood, family, memories and inexplicable psychological states are topics that Rubin often explores. Since 2000, Rubin’s works have become less specific with regards to time, location and circumstance. The facial information of his characters have also been erased. This system deletes the faces of the subjects and makes the audience focus on their structure instead. The method of establishing new emotional connections with hairstyle, accessories, body posture is continuously at the core of his work, driving his audience to read his works in a particular way. The spectator will need to carefully stare at the division of bright colours to distinguish the key points, and then reassemble a brand-new story based on their own experience and general knowledge.
Gideon Rubin was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1973. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1999, and received a master's degree from the Slade School of Fine Arts, the University of London in 2002. He currently lives and works in London. Rubin's work is about the memory of something that is about to disappear, hovering between turbulence and evanescence. The portraits in his paintings deliberately remove the facial features of the person, inviting the audience to use their memory to complete the missing details, and through this "dialogue" he establishes a private connection between the work and the viewer, arousing empathy and a feeling of nostalgia. Rubin's works have been exhibited and collected by many important art institutions in the world, including Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel, Freud Museum in London, Rubin Museum in Tel Aviv, FLAG Art Fund in New York, Glasgow Mackintosh Sh Museum, Wolinden Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands, McEvoy Art Foundation in San Francisco, The Zabludowicz Collection in London, Frances Foundation in France etc.