Cynthia Beth Rubin’s collage crackles with energy, as colors vibrate off one another and forms within forms, textures within textures, rub against each other. Keen senses of both aesthetic freedom and control of technique suffuse the piece — which, it turns out, hearken back to a famous artistic ancestor.
“[Pablo] Picasso hangs over the lives of so many artists working today,” Rubin writes in an accompanying statement.“We do not have to admire Picasso. or even respond deeply to his work, to be influenced by Picasso. His reach was so significant that the artists many of us openly acknowledge as influence, Henri Matisse, Hans Hoffman, Miriam Schapiro, and Lee Krasner, and more, were all touched by his ideas and the energy of his work.”
Rubin’s piece is part of“After Picasso — The Constructed Image,” a lively and thought-provoking show curated by artist Linda Lindroth hanging in the Da Silva Gallery on Whalley Avenue in Westville. The show is part of Westville Open Studios this weekend, Oct. 28 and 29, which marks the final weekend of the artist-organized City-Wide Open Studios, which began at the start of the month.
