School of Art and Design Alumni Exhibition 2021

Saundra Rubiera
Graduated 1969 & 1973

When you hold an interesting object in your hands, you can almost hear the long-forgotten voices of those who used the object before you: your grandmother humming as she places flowers in a vase, your little brother playing with a toy airplane, your father whistling as he whittles a wooden squirrel with a well-worn knife. There are stories in the objects we use everyday. Those stories and the memories they evoke are the reason I find drawing still life so interesting.

Lately, I have been using vases, flowers, and musical instruments in my work. I find a humorous family resemblance between the belly of the vase and the belly of a mandolin. It amuses me to see the shape of a flower petal repeating itself in the handle of a vase and the keys of a clarinet. I enjoy the contrast between the real flowers inside the vase and another artist’s flowers painted onto the vase.

I like playing with a limited, shallow space which flattens the objects I draw. I want them to exist both in an illusion of 3-D space and simultaneously be flat and decorative. The objects are drawn close-up and decorated with lines and patterns that break the larger shapes into smaller colored spots which activate the surface and create movement. The intensity of color as well as the repetition of insistent pattern create an equality with the objects in my work.

This drawing is small. Stand close.

Orange and Blue, Colored markers, 12″ x 12″ x 1″, 2018