10 Questions with Edward L. Rubin

Edward L. Rubin is an award-winning fine art photographer, production designer, and painter based in Los Angeles. With a background in architecture from UC Berkeley and a Master of Fine Arts in Set Design from Carnegie Mellon, Edward's artistic career spans multiple disciplines. His photographs have been exhibited worldwide, including in major competitions and galleries in the U.S. and Europe. His photography book Vermont – An Insider's Outside View was shortlisted for the 2016 International Rubery Book Awards and won multiple accolades, including a 2017 Independent Publishers Book Award Gold Medal. Edward has received six Emmy nominations for Art Direction, winning for Cinderella (Disney). He has worked on over 60 productions, taught at FIDM, and earned five nominations for the Excellence in Production Design Award. His pastel paintings have been shown in galleries in California, and his painting The Annunciation won First Place in The Artist's Magazine 2013 competition. Currently, he is working on a photography series titled My Mannequin Moment, which is a series of portraits that depict the transcendent moment when we realize we are no longer aligned with the roles, beliefs, or relationships we've accepted and where the veil is lifted and we confront the false ideals imposed on us. Edward has been married to poet Sam Ambler for 34 years and is an avid swimmer.

www.edwardlrubinphoto.com | @edwardlrubinphoto

MY MANNEQUIN MOMENT | Project Description

The portraits in MY MANNEQUIN MOMENT depict a transcendent moment when individuals realize they are no longer aligned with their current path or identity. It’s a recognition that what they are doing, believing, or involved in no longer serves their highest good or reflects their true selves. Everyone has, at some point, embraced ideas, roles, or relationships that weren’t truly what they wanted or thought they wanted. From birth, society imposes belief systems about success, normalcy, power, beauty, and identity, shaping our sense of self. The Mannequin Moment occurs when one stops listening to these external voices and begins to hear the true, inner Voice—the authentic Self. Mannequins are used as symbols of unattainable perfection, embodying false ideals. Through them, the artist portrays the decisive moment when a person no longer fits into these imposed roles, when the veil is lifted and self-awareness begins.

INTERVIEW

Your career spans photography, painting, and production design. How do these disciplines intersect in your creative process, and what unique perspectives does each bring to your work?

I have always been a storyteller, and it has been my passion to tell these stories, first through painting, then through sets and environments that I designed for film and television, and now through photography.
These disciplines are certainly divergent, but I have always used their narrative aspects to create my art. As a painter, I applied color on two- dimensional canvasses to express the inner psyche of my subjects. As a production designer, I built three-dimensional sets reflecting the socio-economic level and psychological complexity of the characters in the script, enhanced through dramatic lighting. Now, I combine all of this in one photograph that contains a world, one photographthat tells us something profoundly important about someone in a particular moment, time, and place. I mix my color sensibilities from painting, my physical staging and lighting from set design, and my content (the person’s story) into a shot selectively revealing some universal truth filtered through my personal emotional lens. It is instant, it is timely, and itprovides the perfect fusion of my diverse disciplines in a single frame.

Having studied architecture at UC Berkeley, how has this training influenced your artistic practice?

The training I received in architecture at UC Berkeley, and later in theatre set design at Carnegie-Mellon University, has had an invaluable effect on my approach to my work. I didn’t actually learn a lot about what makes good or bad buildings or theatre sets at these schools.
Rather, I learned more about the creative process: how to commit to a project and see it through from start to finish in a disciplined, systematic way that also allows for twists and turns–the unpredictable–which may ultimately deliver a more interesting and successful result than previously envisioned. Flexible thinking is the key, based on trusting that the path to a great solution is already there, waiting to be revealed, if we are open and willing. I started to understand this as a student, and over the years, I applied it to everything I have created and continue to create.

Your photography often captures intimate moments. How do you approach storytelling through your lens, and what draws you to a particular subject or scene?

Why do we tell stories in the first place? We tell them to laugh, cry, feel sorrow, joy, and fear, imagine, experience something new and different, take comfort in the familiar, and understand something. Storytelling explains us to us. It tells us who we are, or maybe who we want to be or don’t want to be. I have done many types of photography: landscape, architecture, still life, portrait, street. I take the picture because something has caught my eye, ignited my interest, or an idea has come to me that can only be best expressed through creating a visual image. Whatever attracts me reflects my psyche, my unique perspective, attitudes, and beliefs. So, every photograph, whatever the subject, is also about me: who I am, how I see, define, and experience the world; what I think is important. The photograph is a way of saying here I am, and it asks the viewer: are you here, too?

As someone who has taught production design, what core philosophies or lessons do you aim to impart to aspiring artists, and how do these principles align with your own creative journey?

For me, the main purpose of production design is always to serve the story first. Every visual aspect of a film must contribute, reflect, and enhance not only the plot but the perception of who the characters are. This is accomplishedthrough selectively curating the physical environment–buildings, landscapes, exteriors, interiors–along with costumes, props, and set dressing. Color and texture are critical. All support the cinematography, which not only captures but gives focus and meaning to what we see. Production designers are visionaries who, depending on the project, are called upon to create onscreen our past, our present, or our future, either in a realistic or imagined way. In order to do this, we must know history, art, music, styles, social trends and movements, graphics, cultures, literature, architecture, plants, and technology. We must have an active curiosity about the world; we must notice stuff. As an artist, I have always been compelled to give visual form to what I see. And what I see doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it has context. The context supports and informs the subject, and the subject influences and defines the context; they are inseparable. My photographs, at their core, are “mini-movies.” I use the elements of production design–curated content, composition, and lighting–in every shot I take.

In your series My Mannequin Moment, mannequins symbolize unattainable perfection. How did you develop this concept, and what inspired you to explore themes of self-awareness and identity through this medium?

Mannequins have always fascinated me. They are abstract idealizations of human beings that (supposedly) embody unattainable perfection. They are false dreams personified–literally. No one resembles nor has the proportions of a mannequin, yet mannequins are considered paragons of human beauty. What happens when we don’t measure up or when we expect others to and they fall short? And mannequins have fixed expressions–forever. They don’t have personalities, they don’t change, have moods, or grow old. We can project any feeling or idea onto them. In my earlier black and whiteimages, I arranged mannequins in groupings, suggesting relationships trapped between the polarities of intimacy and alienation. One day, I decided to stage a photograph of a person and a mannequin together that would reflect this same dynamic. The photograph, called Pool Couple, became a commentary on the collision of the authentic and the artificial, the mundane and the extraordinary, missed connections, self-involvement, and the inability to separate our feelings and our actions from our expectations. Then I realized I could substitute a mannequin for a person–the mannequin would actually portray the person–in a life moment when they knew, they really, really knew, that they were not meant to be where they were, or be doing what they were doing, or that whatever it is they were involved with, or thinking, was neither for their highest good nor in their best interests; that it did not reflect their authentic selves. Using a simulacrum as a surrogate for my subject at their decisive moment when they no longer fit in, when the veil was lifted, became the Mannequin Moment. How many of us have had moments in our life like these? All of us. I started asking people for stories of their moments, and now I stage them, using my skills as a production designer to build sets or find shooting locations, determine and get the appropriate costumes and set dressing, select key props, and create the lighting. I ask friends to “act” in these photographs if the narrative requires characters in addition to the mannequin, and I direct them during the shoot. Putting this together requires extraordinary kindness and generous help from a lot of people for whom I am forever grateful.

Your artist statement discusses the societal imposition of belief systems. How does your work challenge these norms, and what role do you believe art plays in fostering individual self-awareness?

Growing up, boys here in the United States were expected to like and excel at sports. Being good at sports meant you were part of the gang, you fit in, and, most importantly, you were masculine. I hated sports. I liked drawing, painting, dancing, music, and theatre, and I really liked dolls, and I don’t mean G.I. Joe. I liked girl dolls, with their silky hair and beautiful clothes. Naturally, I was totally ashamed of this–boys weren’t supposed to like dolls! Only sissy boys liked them, and being called a sissy was the absolute worst thing that could happen–you were a target for bullies and insults; you were shunned. Plus, although I had no concept of homosexuality at that time, I was attracted to other boys in a way I couldn’t really grasp but knew, instinctively, from observing and absorbing the world around me–what people said and did–that this was wrong. And not just wrong: deadly, horribly, wrong. I hid my secrets from everyone, believing, in my heart, that I was a total failure, not just as a boy but as a person. Thank God for therapy!
The first Mannequin Moment I staged and shot was my own. It shows a father and two sons, wearing identical football jerseys, watching television in a 1960s living room decorated to celebrate the big game. They are going nuts because their team has just won–at least the father and the older son are. The little boy remains in his chair, isolated, impassive, holding a girl’s doll and looking away. The little boy in the photograph is actually a mannequin, and that mannequin represents me.
We are born into belief systems that carve grooves in our minds about success, normalcy, power, sex, inferiority, superiority, race, class, masculinity, femininity, and beauty. At what point do we stop listening to the voices placed in our heads and start listening to that one true Voice within us, our sacred Self? Authenticity is currently imperiled in our world. Lies are weaponized to replace facts by constructing false narratives that suit biased agendas, which are then promoted, spread, and accepted as truth via social media. And accountability–taking responsibility for one’s actions–is no longer upheld as a virtue.
Profound change always starts first with the individual, and art has the power to reveal the universe in the personal; both can heal. I create these Mannequin Moments, this art, to show that breaking the soul-crushing ideas, experiences, and relationships that are either imposed on us or chosen by us is possible. It is my hope and desire that viewers–all different kinds of viewers–see these stories of transcendent self-discovery and recognize themselves in them, see and feel their own struggles, knowing they are not alone. And in this knowing, they are empowered to step into their own greater, beautiful, authentic unfolding.

Winning an Emmy for Cinderella and working on iconic productions like American Horror Story, how do you balance the collaborative nature of production design with the personal expression found in your fine art?

I used to have two separate careers: production designer and artist. They were very different endeavors, and for decades, I would shuttle between the two, working on a show and then working on my art after the show had finished. Creating sets for films involved many people; budget and time constraints greatly affected the scale and look of the design. I was constantly told what I could and couldn’t have and could or couldn’t do. Painting and photography, however, only involved me–on my own time and on my own dime; it was totally personal. My art sprang from my head, and I aloneformed, shaped, and produced it. Man, did I love that! There was some cross-pollination. The vivid, saturated colors in my paintings can be associated with the Cinderella sets, and aspects of film noir–carefully composed scenic compositions and sculptural, character-revealing lighting–are referenced in my black and white photography. Now, with My Mannequin Moments, I am absolutely collaborating with others, but this time, I am in service of my art for a concept that originated with me. And I don’t limit myself! Once I have selected someone’s story to shoot, we have many meetings where I learn so much, not only about what happened but about the person themselves: their background, their history, their culture, their thoughts, and their feelings. It can get deeply emotional. We bounce ideas around about where to shoot the image and what elements should be included. Once set, this is our “script.” I encourage my subjects to be at the actual shoot of their Moment because their reactions and responses to what’s happening as it is unfolding can take me in a new and unexpected direction, producing something way better than what we originally envisioned. I love that!

With your experience in both fine art and television, how do you see the role of visual storytelling evolving in today’s media landscape, and how does your work contribute to this evolution?

Today’s media landscape is so vast and diverse it feels almost overwhelming. Everything we need or are interested in is only one click away on our computers, phones and tablets. The internet provides instant access to every kind of visual expression available. It’s incredibly easy to see almost every artistic endeavor ever created by any culture, either in the past or happening right now, through websites, social media platforms, and photo-sharing apps. And we don’t even have to search for them–they come to us, whether we want them to or not. Algorithms discern the patterns of our interests and constantly bombard us with new stuff to look at, tailored specifically to our tastes. Friends, and friends of friends, or complete strangers, send us stuff on our feeds. How does an artist navigate this new paradigm? By creating works that capture attention immediately and that manage to pause the eye during those first few precious seconds of exposure.Works that are inventive, creative, challenging, unique, dynamic, original, thoughtful, deliberate, meaningful, and profound; images that engage our emotions and our senses, that seduce us. Techniques can be simple or complicated, old, new, immersive–whatever it takes. They can incorporate media technology, or even reinvent media technology. The potential exposure of our work through today’s media landscape is an amazing opportunity we can use to our advantage, but first and foremost, our art must have, at its core and foundation, a great idea, a great story, one that captures hearts and minds. That’s what makes people stop and take notice; it’s what they fundamentally respond to, and that’s what I start with–always.

From your Emmy wins to accolades in international photography competitions, how have these achievements influenced your artistic direction and goals for the future?

Winning the awards has been wonderful; I am grateful for the acknowledgment, and yes, indeed, it makes me feel very,very good. But winning awards hasn’t had any influence on what I choose to create. And it shouldn’t. I create art from an idea living within me that interests and engages me so much that I am willing to devote whatever time and effort is necessary to bring it into the world in physical form. If I don’t know how to do it, I will figure it out. This is not work. It is a joyful calling, and I am absolutely compelled to do it. Many times, I have won first place in a competition with an image, and that same image has been rejected by other competitions. This happens a lot. So I just keep moving forward, instinctively following the green lights guiding me on my path of personal expression, and I am thrilled when my stops along the way–my art–have meaning for and are appreciated by others.

Lastly, what is your biggest project for 2025? Do you already have something planned for the coming months?

Right now, my biggest project for 2025 and beyond is creating more photographs for the My Mannequin Moment series. I have completed six images and I am planning to include thirty in the series–maybe more! I am gathering stories to shoot all of the time, and each one takes several months to produce from start to finish. I’m pretty busy!

Artist’s Talk

Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.