Portrait – Beth Consetta Rubel and Nafis M. White
Curator: Beth Consetta Rubel

Portrait: a pictorial representation of a person usually showing the face.

Wayne Shorter’s seminal work titled Portrait is the impetus and inspiration behind both the exhibition title and the bodies of work that unite the practice of artists Beth Consetta Rubel and Nafis M. White. Just as Shorter conflates simple and compound meter in jazz by bridging African, swing and cross rhythms to create new pathways of intellectual discourse, Rubel and White take a similar approach uniting themes of accumulation, belonging, abstraction and portraiture towards the synthesis of ideas around identity and power. Using color theory as a through line while moving beyond simple definitions prescribing guidelines for use of color, White and Rubel instead utilize chroma as a way to increase power, resonance, and urgency through abstract narratives. Like Shorter, the melodies shift frequently within the work lending itself to lead new lives often in simultaneity.

About the Artists:

Beth Consetta Rubel focuses on themes of duality, identity, and representation related to pop culture. Her work blends traditional mediums with historic found objects, and modern technology to reflect on what we have learned from the past. She taunts the viewer, while opening dialog to consider their role in our collective progress.

Rubel is a mixed media visual artist raised in Texas, currently residing in Sacramento, CA. She holds a BFA from University of Texas in Painting and Drawing and her work is featured in Politico Magazine, permanently installed at FaceBook Headquarters and also at the Native in Austin

Nafis White is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist whose work mines complex narratives around objects commonly found in beauty supply stores, in nature, on industrial sites and the seemingly limitless horizons of our global and political landscapes. Through sculpture, installation, photography, found objects and weaving she centers the uncanny audacity of self-affirmation and love by means of repetition as a form of change.

White holds an MFA and BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Sculpture, Printmaking and Digital Media with a Concentration in Art History. She lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work is in the permanent collection of the RISD Museum and University of New Mexico Art Museum, and has been exhibited at Autograph ABP, Goldsmiths University and OXO Tower in London, Overture Center for the Arts Madison, The de Young Museum, Root Division among many others.