Dina Rubiolo

Biography

Dina Rubiolo is a Northern Californian artist working in mixed media and Installation.  She received a BA in Theater Arts and Filmmaking from Humboldt State University in 1994 and an MFA in Sculpture from San Diego State University in 2005.  She has taught Sculpture, Design, Art History, and Woodworking at San Diego County community colleges and universities since 2002 before recently returning to Northern California.

In the spirit of Merit Oppenheims’ famous statement, “the idea is always born with its’ form,” Rubiolo engages with multiple mediums and uses a variety of materials in her work.  Much of her inspiration comes from research into Systems Theory, sensory integration, and Family Process Theory. Each of these topics address the idea of emergent properties in which the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

She sifts through the language of this research looking for archetypal motifs that have intergenerational connotations.  Motion and gravity, sexuality, interpersonal dynamics, cosmological organization, and humor are components consistently found in her work.

Recently she has been working with old 35mm slides that she weaves together into large tapestries. She built a wire-winding machine to create the metal rings that link the slides together. The faded images in the quilt like screens reference the domestic environment, address ideas of time and memory, and become a visual document of the reticular formation of relationships, connections and context through which we define ourselves.