ABOUT RAPHAEL
Raphael Rubino is a Northern California artist based in Santa Rosa.
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He embraces self expression through paint pouring, portraits, and space themed works. With an abstract sense of color and flow, he brings aspects of sci-fi and retro color schemes to a modern light.
His passion for art began at a young age, embracing his creativity by creating comics and card games. As he has transformed into the artist he is today, he continues to take inspirations from modern media by creating pieces inspired by humor, video games and synthwave music.
meeting raphael
the journey...
What inspired you to paint pour?
What really attracted you to this form of art?
"I saw paint pouring online for the first time, and I knew that I had to try it. I had taken a long break from art, and, at this time, I felt that everything was brand new to me. When paint pouring came around, I didn't think it was possible to make something beautiful just by pouring paint. The term "fluid art" was a foreign concept to me. I was so removed from the art world for so long, all I knew art of art were realism, comics, or abstract art like throwing paint from Jackson Pollock, I didn’t know that fluid art could be an entire new world."
"I said to myself that I wanted to give paint pouring a try. My first time trying it, I had absolutely no concept of it. I didn’t even think of if there was a certain paint to use, I figured "Oh, you just pour paint on a canvas…" so I literally just put paint into cups and poured it and I was like “why isn’t it working, I don’t get it!” It ended up being cool anyway but wasn’t what I wanted.
When I started to really get into it I was like “oh you actually mix the paint, you make it fluid, you pick colors that blend together, you use water, you use dish soap, you use medium, maybe you coat the canvas first, make it wet first…” maybe that makes the paint do something different… discovering all of that along the way. I wasn’t looking things up because I like to figure things out on my own, so I do things the hard way. Just like how I don’t like playing a video game by looking up how you get to the end of it, or what the secret part is to beat it right away, I like to take a long time to get it to where I want it to go, it makes things better, and I make things fully my own because of that approach.
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90 percent of being an artist is being able to work with whatever is going on; you must be able to improvise. What you want to happen isn’t going to happen a lot of the time, but you must make something of it where it feels like your own."
"When I look at a fluid painting I've made, I naturally find shapes and relatability within it. I see things that exist in our world within the abstract shapes that exist within the paint pour. I then relate it to myself, it becomes my own, and it becomes personal at that point. I find the process and result so unbelievably beautiful, from the excitement of not knowing what’s going to happen, kind of controlling it, or not controlling it, then finding some purpose and meaning in it. It’s so exciting, scary, and crazy all at the same time and nothing replicates that."
"If you sit down and make a portrait, you know what exactly what you’re going to do. However, when you’re making a fluid painting it’s so incredible, freeing, and exciting, once you realize you can gain more and more control once you learn how it all flows. It just becomes the most insane thing you can do… you’re existing on a different level."
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So, it’s like controlling the uncontrollable?
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"Yes. Nothing else is as freeing as making fluid art. The point between rage, chaos and beauty is the point right before the paint is poured from the cups, where nothing else exists in my mind in that moment. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world."
