I make images that explore the identities I have inhabited in my life. I am particularly influenced by my Southern up brining, queer culture, and my present life as a straight wife and mother. I grew up in Nashville, in an upper-middle-class family; when I was eighteen, I rehearsed for my coming out as a debutante at a charity ball. In my late twenties I returned to this rigidly hierarchical world in order to document it. In my early twenties I lived in New York City with female roommates who rescued me from Southern sorority sisters; later, I met a group of lesbians who took me on road trips out of the city. The work I made from each of these experiences presses the energy of femaleness into the service of a visual language that articulates grace, beauty, and danger—all on a scale writ larger than that of my own self.
Vivian Rubin holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Parsons School of Design. She lives in Los Angeles.