As an artist, Beth focuses on themes of race, gender, sexuality, and contemporary pop culture. She uses a mixture of colored pencils, pastel crayons, acrylics, and gouache, and uses a brown paper bag as her canvas.
Beth’s subjects are relativistic to cultural norms, drawing attention to historical concepts and events that society often chooses to ignore.
These days, the Texas-born Beth Rubel is something of a nomadic artist, traveling back and forth from Texas to California to complete her remarkable murals. At the age of 15, Beth painted her first mural at the Crisis Center in Bastrop, Texas, which consisted of bustling garden scenes in the therapy rooms. Since then, Beth has painted more than a dozen murals.
Most of Beth’s wall art is found throughout the state of Texas. However, Beth has completed four stunning murals in Sacramento. The last two murals, “I Believe,” completed in 2022, are located in Sacramento. And the newest mural, “Black History Month,” is located in downtown Sacramento behind the CRNA building.
The Paper Bag Test Series is a large collection of portraits of people of African or African American descent created in 2013-2017. Beth’s most recent work, Higher Education: Learning Toys, represents a movement and combines pop culture or current events with historical and iconic children’s toys.
