RUBENS KORUBIN - RUBENS OF EASTERN EUROPE: ARTIST & HIS MUSE


Rubens Korubin. Mirror. XXI. acrylic on canvas. 70 x 90 cm


Opening Reception Saturday March 10, 6 - 9pm
Exhibition Dates: March 1st - 22nd


Bezpala Brown Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Rubens Korubin, one of the most recognizable of Macedonian artists, and picturesque mosaics created during the last six years by Lile Korubin, one of leading fashion designers in Macedonia.

Rubens takes Renaissance subjects and transports them to a modern frontier. His use of shading breathes light at almost any shade. His characters leap from the canvas, always the focal point yet not so much so as to be detached from the scene.

Rubens has been featured in Canada, France (Galerie Le Lys in Paris, among others), UK, Germany, Italy, Australia, Czech Republic and, of course, Macedonia. His works can be found in numerous private art collections in both Europe and North America as well as in public collections in Macedonia, including the National Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, and the Academy of Science and Arts. He is also acclaimed for his production and installation of a monumental mosaic of 140 sq meters in Pelince, near Skopje.

"... Korubin's large oils on canvas feature female muse figures who inhabit both the mystical and mundane worlds. Employing scratchy brushwork on top of deep, melancholy colour fields, Korubin enlivens the mythology by giving his female figures a harder edge. His women are not billowy, blousy layabouts, but figures full of twitchy energy. The tableaux he sets around his women, while nodding at neo-classical tropes (abundant fruit, pretty drapery, acres of lawns), are interrupted by bursts of text, or a Tron-esque grid, and many unobtrusive, winking nods to contemporary reality. In one painting, a satellite dish hovers over a collection of nymphs frolicking about a ruin. In another, a muse carries a laboratory flask to what could be a grocery-store shopping cart. The muse's life: it's not all lounging by the reflecting pool huffing perfume." - R.M. Vaughan

Globe and Mail. A Muse at Bezpala Brown Gallery, Sep 4, 2010

"... Rubens is among those artists that have succeeded in their work to surmount, for themselves and for us, the limit of human fortuity. To convince us (or "fool" us) with his gentle artistic "caress" on the canvas, the velvet layers of delicately selected and coordinated colours that vibrate with the movements of nature, that the search for artistic "beauty" is still and very much worth our while. This is the form of struggle that Rubens has chosen to rise over the hopelessness and the ugliness that hover over modern day humanity in more ways than one." - Boris Petkovski

Lile Korubin, well known to Macedonian public as a fashion designer, found an enormous artistic passion in mosaics. Her début exhibition last December in Skopje revealed a new layer of her artistic talent. With the tremendous support from her spouse, Rubens Korubin, Lile began to explore this ancient art form and to fulfil her creative potential. It required courage and commitment. Every piece of stone and marble is picked with meticulous attention, then crushed, and distributed. To be effective, the execution must be accurate with recognition that every minute particle plays a significant role in the creation of the whole composition.




Bezpala Brown Gallery
17 Church St, Toronto ON M5E1M2
Tel: 416 907 6875
Mon, Tues, Wed: 11am - 6pm
Thurs, Fri, Sat: 11am -8pm
Sun: Closed or by Appt.
www.bezpalabrown.com



Lile Korubin. Tuscany. 2011. marble, Venetian smalt, glass, pebbles. 40x30cm

Also coming up next at Bezpala Brown Gallery:

March 24-31: LASTIN MARCH show, Reception: Saturday March 24th, 12 noon - 3pm, a one-week juried international exhibition will be showcasing emerging artists from Canada, Russia, and Cuba alongside with works by Rubens Korubin.

April 5-20, reception Thursday April 5th, 6-9pm, FREUDOSCOPE, a solo exhibit of new series by Oleg Lipchenko, an award-winning Canadian painter, illustrator and graphic artist.