Lydia Rubio/ CONSTELLATIONS
August 7- September 15
ELEVATED MATTER GALLERY is pleased to open an exhibition of new oil paintings by Lydia Rubio in Hudson, NY as part of the Hudson Eye Festival. The solo show titled CONSTELLATIONS will feature 13 new abstract paintings by Cuban-American artist Lydia Rubio that have not been exhibited before. The exhibition will continue through Sept 15.
Twelve Moons | 2018 | Natural pigments and mixed media on canvas | 71 x 118 x 2 in
Since her 2015 trip to Patagonia, the artist has been fueled by a need to simplify and distill. She has replaced the terrestrial narrative present in her previous paintings with an idiosyncratic and transcendental alphabet of gesture and form. In these compositions, the artist approaches the construction of her paintings as a “visual musician”. Rubio’s work achieves a sort of cosmic hum that recalls the idea of the Musica Universalis. The ancients argued that the Music of the Spheres, while inaudible to anatomical ears, can be heard by the soul.
Blue Note | 2019 | Natural pigments and resin | 20 x 20 x 2
Rubio’s paintings are both contemplative and constructive in nature. They contain the “spiritual fervor” of which Kandinsky so intensely wrote: "Composition is an expression of a slowly formed inner feeling, which comes to utterance only after long maturing.” The painting technique combines transparent atmospheric spaces with sharply defined geometric forms. Her unique language of form and color awakens the senses, conferring an uplifting and spiritual elegance upon the viewer.
“CONSTELLATIONS is an exploration of opposites combined: concreteness and gesture, order and chaos, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. At its heart, it is a series about magnificence and mystery.”
-Lydia Rubio
Notes on the Sea/2 | 2020 | Oil on Panel | 12 x 12x 1
exhibition hours /
Friday,Saturday 11—5pm
or by appointment
422 1/2 Warren St Hudson NY
During the Hudson Eye Festival and Upstate Art weekend, the gallery will be open — 7 days a week — Friday Aug 27 - Mon Sept 6
Lydia Rubio is a Cuban-born American artist based in Hudson, NY. She comes from three generations of women painters, and her multidisciplinary works include paintings, sculptures, drawings, artist books, and public art. Hers is a search for the poetic with painting as her core activity. She is interested in process, word-image connections, fragmentation, and change. Her paintings balance Apollonian clarity and Dionysian excess while looking for order in technique and concept.
Constellation #8 | 2018 | Mixed media on panel | 30 x 30 x 1.5 in
Rubio holds an M. Arch. from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she studied with Rudolf Arnheim. She taught at Harvard and Parsons School of Design before starting her full-time art practice in 1980. Rubio has exhibited in galleries in New York, Miami, Montreal, and Bogota. She has held solo museum exhibitions at The Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale (1995) and the Bronx Museum of the Arts (1985); group exhibitions at the Museum of the Americas (2019), Frost Art Museum (2011), and the Museum of Latin American Art (2006); and traveling exhibitions at the Snite Museum of Art and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
about /
ELEVATED MATTER
ELEVATED MATTER is a salon-style private gallery in a historic Warren street townhouse in Hudson, NY. The gallery opened in June 2021 and shows fine art, fine studio jewelry, and design. The focus is on contemporary American artists and designers who engage deeply with historical processes and craft.
Careful curatorial attention is paid to the non-traditional and unexpected, particularly in the realm of the senses. This emphasis on sensory elevation infuses the space with an intimate elegance. The founder, Chris Davies, is an artist-jeweler hailing from a family of artists, architects, and designers going back generations.