ABOVE: Champion | Oil on canvas | 54" x 52" | Copyright Jane Rubin 1996
Paintings, Drawings, Dance, Sound
Exhibitions, Publications, and Performances
janefirst.com was launched in 2000 to showcase the multi-disciplinary art of Jane Rubin.
Dancer who Paints
In childhood, Jane was simultaneously advanced in dance, painting, and music. Dance was Jane's primary art form. Her athletic coordination was noticed in early childhood. She was put in a ballet class taught by a member of The National Ballet who lived in her hometown of York, PA. When the instructor — who was the only serious one in York — suddenly retired in Jane's pre-teens, Jane's focus became visual art.
Jane paints and draws with her athletic coordination and muscle memory, as well as with vision.
Early Art
Jane Rubin's paintings, drawings, and multimedia art have been exhibited in New York City and Los Angeles since her early 20s. Jane had her first solo exhibition in New York City — before graduating from Columbia University — when she was 20 years old — in The James Chapel of Union Theological Seminary. Jane's next solo show — in 1986 when she was 23 — was an exhibition of large-scale drawings at "Tin Pan Alley" — the seminal art and performance space in Hell's Kitchen.
Jane's paintings and drawings have been published on book covers and in magazines since her early 20s. One of Jane's large drawings at Tin Pan Alley was published in the influential punk magazine "Chemical Imbalance," with musician John Zorn performing in front of it. This drawing was purchased by a screenwriter in Los Angeles.
Recent Art
From 1998 to 2019, Jane drew and painted male professional athletes at basketball and baseball games in New York City — while they were playing — in real-time. The paintings and drawings that Jane made of male athletes in motion were a bridge. Creating that live-action art brought Jane back to her roots in dance.