TAMMIE RUBIN

Exhibition Dates:
November 1 - December 20, 2024

Opening Reception:
Friday, November 1, 2024, 5:00-9:00pm

Artist Talk:
Saturday, November 2 @ 11:00am

Rivalry Projects is thrilled to present a solo exhibition of new works by Austin-based artist Tammie Rubin. Join us for the opening reception on Friday, November 1 from 5:00-9:00pm, along with an artist talk on Saturday, November 2 at 11:00am. The exhibition will be on view from November 1 - December 20, 2024.

"Black women are the mules of the earth"
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

I Am Woman | I  Am Labor | I Am Home examines complex narratives around women’s labor through new sculptures, prints, and installation-based works. The exhibition is informed by Rubin’s continued research on her own lineage, and how these histories affect her experiences of labor as an artist.

The exhibition is anchored by a vibrant blue, hand-painted map of the United States that sprawls across two walls of the gallery. A recurring motif in her practice, maps are symbols of autonomy, power, and escape, often in the face of erasure. Through Rubin’s intervention, the map becomes a vehicle for reclamation that traces the history of migration in the US, and offers a platform through which to explore stories of community, care, resilience, and survival.

The sculptures in the exhibition are venerations of labor. Utilizing found furniture, alongside the cast media of porcelain and hydrostone, Rubin creates shrines that highlight the multiplicity of the work that occurs both inside and outside of the home. These objects recall roles such as housekeeper, seamstress, cook, caretaker, and homemaker, to name a few, and employ furniture that serves multiple purposes - the ironing board that is both ladder and chair, or the shoe shine box that is both a stepping stool and a place of rest. In Sustenance, 2024, Rubin combines a hydrostone cast of her own head with a plethora of cast fruits and vegetables that appear to tumble out of her likeness like a cornucopia. In this work, Rubin becomes an object and witness to the categorizations thrust upon her. She is both a symbol of abundance, of ritual offerings, and a fractured, decapitated version of herself.

The installation is joined by two prints, produced in 2024 in collaboration with Buffalo-based fine art print studio Mirabo Press. Together the works in the exhibition conjure interwoven stories of survival, care, spirituality, and relocation, while holding space for what often goes unacknowledged.

WORKS

Installation Images

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Tammie Rubin (b. Chicago, IL) is a ceramic sculptor and installation artist whose practice considers the intrinsic power of objects and coded symbols as signifiers, wishful contraptions, and mythic relics. Her artwork weaves together familial, historical, and literary narratives of Black American citizenry, migration, autonomy, and faith. Rubin has received residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Penland School of Craft, and Pottery Northwest. She is the 2022 Tito's Prize winner and a 2024 USA Artists Fellow in Craft. 

Rubin exhibits widely; selections include Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; AGBS Christian-Green Gallery at the University of Texas at Austin, Mulvane Art Museum, KS; George Washington Carver Museum, Austin, TX; Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN; The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, TX; Women & Their Work Gallery, Austin, TX; Rivalry Projects, Buffalo, NY; and Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio, TX. Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX., and C24 Gallery, New York, NY, represent the artist.

Rubin's artwork has received reviews in online and print publications such as Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Oxford American, Art in America, Glasstire, Austin Chronicle, Sightlines, fields, Conflict of Interest, Arts and Culture Texas, and Ceramics: Art & Perception. She is a member of ICOSA Collective, a non-profit cooperative gallery. Born and raised in Chicago, Rubin lives in Austin, Texas; she is an Associate Professor of Studio Arts, Ceramics at Texas State University.