CENTER OF BOOK ARTS NYC
Opening October 3 – 14
Artist talk December 5th

Journals of Cuba, India and Patagonia. See complete journals videos here.

The Traveling Artist: Journals by Lydia Rubio

This exhibition features artistic documentation of artist Lydia Rubio’s travel narratives across linguistic and geographic landscapes. A multiple series of work including, The Genius Loci Book ( Colombia ), Journal of a Trip to the Island ( Cuba ), and Travel Journals from India, Patagonia, Geneva, and Morocco. The works record the artist’s experiences across a variety of calligraphic, drawing and poetic compositions.

Quotes on books 

Adriana Herrera

“Lydia Rubio has succeeded in bringing into contemporary art the highest expression of the travel diary in a medium such as an artist’s book, the genesis of which takes us back to the Middle Ages.  Her books are iconic: they are exquisite and freely imaginative, much like the drawings done by copyists on margins and, at the same time, are linked to the crossings of endless territories, from real topographies of the places she has lived to immersions in the diverse times of the history of art.” 

“Lydia Rubio‘s Travel Journals are a result of an early appreciation for words and calligraphy. In the 1980s, her practice began to incorporate her fascination with to poets, the act of drawing, the life behind lines and gestures, and the sensual qualities of paper into the medium of the artist’s book. For Rubio, these books are the field where a free stream of thoughts meets the planner of strategist.”

“Lydia Rubio’s Travel Journals are an artistic documentation of the artist’s travel narratives across linguistic and geographic landscapes. The works record the artist’s experiences across a variety of calligraphic, drawing and poetic compositions. This exhibition includes multiple series of work including The Genius Loci Book, Journal of a Trip to the Island, and Travel Journals.”

“The Genius Loci Book 2014, documents the artist trips in Colombia during her extended residence, with notes, maps, watercolors and quotes from A Von Humboldt, Frederick Church, Goethe about landscape and art. The Journal of a Trip to the Island documents the artist’s trip to Cuba in 1999 and contains the studies for works that were later executed after returning to the studio. The works represent her reaction against the extremely visual and verbal turbulence within today’s world. Of them, Rubio says, “in them, I look for refuge, retreat into self, silence.” Continuing this work today, her studio practice is an ongoing investigation of nature and representation in painting: imagined or perceived, the abstract or the real simulated.”