During the past three years my work has focused on toys and
portraiture. I have always been fascinated with the figure, and
after witnessing first hand the horrors of 9/11 while on a visit
to NY, I found myself in a frenzy of painting old and battered
toys.

Painting them over and over again felt as if I was unloading my
thoughts and feelings onto the little things, like the wooden
elephant that seemed to invite me into its own history, hidden
within. The toys held the markings of time, and my paintings
had to reflect that. Quickly scraping an old image and putting
down a new one on top was my own way to express markings
of time.

I cover the canvas over and over again with an image observ-
ed or imagined. Focusing on tonal variations, applied on small
or large canvases, my paintings seem to create a sense of
gloom — a pale light that, far from being colorless, contains
purple, orange, blue and crimson. I try to create an image em-
bodied with mystery, like a déjà vu, as if seen before; an
image lost, much like a memory.

—Gideon Rubin