Glen Rubsamen

Glen Rubsamen’s landscape paintings are heavily influenced by his life in Los Angeles and the attention to famous tourist panoramas seen on postcards throughout the city. Working most regularly with acrylic on linen, these works begin with photographs he takes then recombines to illustrate these scenes. Flattened palm trees, billboards, and power lines are often painted in black against blazing auras of light, in both ambient warm colors of the sunset as well as absurdist greens and yellows. These modest scenes are both fact and fiction, and challenge the viewer to find comfort in their role as tourist and voyeur amid Rubsamen’s exploration of the city. Although nearly every location in the world can be assessed by way of the Internet, photographs, or books, Rubsamen attempts to illustrate his city anew and assign novel experiences to his hometown.

Rubsamen has exhibited at venues including Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, Polk Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Bonner Kunstverein, Germany, Kunstverein Munich, Germany, Witte de With, Rotterdam, and extensively in international galleries. He participated in the Taipei Biennial in 2002.