Patrick Rubinstein’s pioneering kinetic artworks pay tribute to the most renowned icons from the second half of the 20th century and offer an extraordinary viewing adventure.
Using aspects of Surrealism, Street, Pop Art and Renaissance, he blends creativity, innovation and science to give each work an animated and perpetually self-renewing aspect.
Born in Paris in 1960, Patrick grew up in the shadow of artists such as Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Yaacov Agam, leading figures in the Op (optical) Art and Kinetic Art movements, whose work was introduced to him by his father.
He was fascinated by the way they combined geometric lines and shapes with eye-popping colour to create the illusion of movement and play with the limits of the human eye’s perception, and they became the primary influence on his own artistic evolution.
However, while their artwork was subtle, disorientating and abstract, Patrick’s is more intuitive and attuned to popular culture and the stories of the day, making his images accessible and highly engaging to a contemporary audience; like Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana before him, he believes that art should provoke a universal emotion.
Patrick meticulously sculpts and refines his artworks like a goldsmith and the outcome is mesmerising. He works with what he calls the double principle, which depicts the fusion of two images designed to blend into one, and the triple principle in which three images are each depicted individually, one centrally and two laterally.
His avant-garde technique is not digital, but uses layering and angling to create the ‘kinetic’ effect, allowing visual variations when the spectator moves around the work. The viewer can therefore change what they see, and decide on the speed, the angles and the approach, so every interactive viewing experience is personal and unique.
Patrick’s work is held in prestigious collections all over the world, including that of King Mohamed IV of Morocco, a number of fashion designers, French football and tennis heroes Kylian Mbappé and Yannick Noah, as well as several other international sport stars. With its polished and defined composition and interesting, sometimes playful, subject matter, Patrick’s work makes a strong but universally appealing statement in any interior space. His list of high profile collaborators includes world renowned architect and designer Philippe Starck.
