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Tammie Rubin

She // Her // Hers

Ceramic Sculptor and Installation Artist

Austin, Texas

A Black woman with short hair looks out beyond the camera. She wears tear drop–shaped wire earrings, a colorful patterned shirt, and poses alongside a sculpture and mural.

Photo by Essentials Creative.

My artwork contemplates narratives of Black American citizenry, migration, autonomy, longing, and faith. By weaving together familial and historical narratives, mapping data, and magical thinking, my installations evoke ritual moments of physical, metaphysical, and spiritual escape.”

Tammie Rubin is a ceramic sculptor and installation artist whose practice considers the intrinsic power of objects and coded symbols as signifiers, wishful contraptions, and mythic relics. Rubin’s artwork delves into narratives of Black American citizenry, migration, autonomy, longing, and faith. By weaving together familial and historical narratives, mapping data, and magical thinking, Rubin’s installations evoke ritual moments of physical, metaphysical, and spiritual escape. She holds an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Washington in Seattle and a dual BFA in Ceramics and Art History from the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign.

Rubin exhibits widely. Selections include Project Row Houses, Houston; the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College; Christian–Green Gallery at the Art Galleries at Black Studies, the University of Texas at Austin; Mulvane Art Museum, KS; the Indianapolis Art Center; the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; Women & Their Work Gallery, Austin; Ruiz–Healy Art, San Antonio, TX; and Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA. Rubin maintains affiliations with grayDUCK Gallery in Austin and Rivalry Projects in Buffalo, NY. She is represented by C24 Gallery, New York, and Galleri Urbane, Dallas. Rubin is the 2022 Tito’s Prize awardee.

Rubin’s artwork has received reviews in publications such as Artforum, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, Glasstire, Austin American–Statesman, The Austin Chronicle, Sightlines, fields, Conflict of Interest, Ceramics: Art & Perception, and Ceramics Monthly Northwest. Born and raised in Chicago, Rubin lives in Austin, where she is Associate Professor of Art at St. Edward’s University.

Donor -This award was generously supported by Anonymous.

This artist page was last updated on: 08.15.2024

A ceramic cone sculpture that has its base resting on a medium blue pedestal. The sculpture has also been painted a medium blue with dark-blue dots and warm-brown triangles. Towards the base of the cone are two eye-shaped holes and a square-like mouth protruding outward.

Unknown Ritual Mask by Tammie Rubin, 2023. Red stoneware, underglaze. I am at my best when I’m escaping exhibition.

Photo by Hector Martinez.

A row of sage-green ceramic sculptures lined up in front of a white backdrop. The sculptures vary in height but are all conical, spherical, or cylindrical in shape. Near the base of every sculpture are two eye-shaped cutouts.

Always & Forever (forever, ever) No. 6 & 7 by Tammie Rubin, 2022. Pigmented porcelain, underglaze, glaze.

Photo by Ryan Arthurs.

A gallery with white walls featuring a design of triangles, geometric shapes, an outline of the US, and an organic shape resembling an enormous puddle; all are painted in the same medium-blue color. Along the walls are shelves with cone-shaped sculptures and small orange-and-white flags. In the center of the space are two medium-blue benches covered with indecipherable objects.

Exhibition view of I am at my best when I’m escaping by Tammie Rubin, 2023. Big Medium Gallery.

Photo by Hector Martinez.