A BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST

 

RICK DUBOV

 

OCTOBER 3, 2011. Listeners to my radio show have heard me interview Rick Dubov, my friend of many years. Rick is truly an extraordinary painter.

 

I’m not writing this, however, to extol his technical skills, but because his work evokes such deep echoes.

 

Last year, my team and I shot video of Rick’s paintings, and I was astonished when I saw so much of his work in one place for the first time. The faces in his paintings and drawings truly are “a family,” as Rick calls them. They resonate with one another—leaving the impression they have sprung from many times and places to gather together, here and now. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, far-flung cousins—from all walks of life.

 

These times and places from which they’ve traveled are not all of this Earth. Some of the faces float in from other dimensions, and seem to have been at the edge of our consciousness for a long while.

 

The more I look at them, the more I recognize them. I begin to fill in stories about them.

 

Well, Rick has just launched a new project with far-reaching implications. He is now doing, on commission, what could be called “psychic portraits.” I’ll let Rick describe this wonderful enterprise:

 

“Have you ever imagined just leaving the studio of Diego Velasquez in 1656, in the court of Philip the Fourth of Spain, and walking into a brilliant sunny day…and then you find yourself in a brisk autumn day in Cubist Paris in 1911?…and then you find yourself in an as yet unnamed future space and time? All these and billions of other

spaces and times are of one piece. It is out of this fertile territory that all of my paintings come.

 

“Now can you imagine yourself making such voyages simply by looking at a commissioned portrait of yourself? You are recognizable in the portrait, but it has the marks of extraordinary places you have gone to.

 

“So now I formally announce the launch of my commissioned portrait series. These commissioned portraits are the painted version of what Jon calls the Magic Theater. People send me photos of themselves, preferably from mid-chest up to the head, and from the deepest pools of my imagination, I perform a kind of alchemy where YOU are placed in a beautiful space where, as you look at your portrait, you can shuttle back and forth between any space and time in which you wish to unleash your imagination.

 

“I refer to all the characters which I have created out of my imagination, and which you will see on my blogsite, as the “family.” The family is a code word for eternal human archetypes which have created endless variations of individual people. I view this project as endless, with as yet unforeseen and surprising results

 

“I hope you can come on board.

 

“The commissioned portraits are 11″x14″, painted in oil on either water color paper or canvas board. People have requested larger ones, so that is also an option also. They are very affordable. Check out my website and please contact me. You can view my work,

and contact me about details concerning the commissioned portraits.”

 

http://rickdubov.blogspot.com

 

I hope you’ll visit Rick’s site and explore his work and consider commissioning a portrait.

 

Jon Rappoport

www.nomorefakenews.com