GUBI x Brian Rideout
From lens to life
BRIAN RIDEOUT
Brian Rideout is a Canadian painter based in Toronto, best known for his distinctive and contemplative portrayals of luxe interiors. His work delves into the intricate relationship between art, design, and cultural history. Working primarily in oil, Rideout transforms found images from design books and magazines into meditative paintings that preserve and recontextualize mid-century interiors as historical documents.
BRIAN RIDEOUT
Brian Rideout is a Canadian painter based in Toronto, best known for his distinctive and contemplative portrayals of luxe interiors. His work delves into the intricate relationship between art, design, and cultural history. Working primarily in oil, Rideout transforms found images from design books and magazines into meditative paintings that preserve and recontextualize mid-century interiors as historical documents.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DESIGN BECOMES MUSE?
In this new body of work created for GUBI, Brian Rideout explores that question, transforming photographs of real interiors into richly detailed oil paintings that blur the line between art and design. These timeless scenes prompt reflection on how design shapes not only the spaces we inhabit, but the way we live.
Across twelve compositions set in modernist villas, lakeside retreats, country homes, and historic pavilions Rideout builds his paintings like a designer builds a room: starting with light and landscape, adding architecture, and layering in furniture and detail. Each element contributes to a story of memory, meaning, and place.
“My paintings act as still lifes, capturing moments in time. Interiors are historical documents, each telling a story about a particular era.”
- Brian Rideout
MOOD 1: PADIGLIONE
Rich in texture and theatrical in composition, the Padiglione series draws from a 1930s Italian social club. Originally designed for leisure and performance, the building’s Art Deco geometry and ornate detailing become a stage for reflection in Rideout’s hands.
MOOD 1: PADIGLIONE
Rich in texture and theatrical in composition, the Padiglione series draws from a 1930s Italian social club. Originally designed for leisure and performance, the building’s Art Deco geometry and ornate detailing become a stage for reflection in Rideout’s hands.
MOOD 2: LAGO MAGGIORE
Lush, secluded, and quietly luminous, the Lago Maggiore series is set in a lakeside estate once nestled in an oak forest and fed by a spring from the Ticino River. Its mirrored pavilions, neoclassical forms, and overgrown garden create a dialogue between structure and softness where nature and design reflect one another.
MOOD 3: RIVIERA LIGURE
Overlooking the Ligurian Sea, this villa is a study in Rationalist architecture, clean, structured, and expressive. The interiors blend Brutalism and Art Deco with a cosmopolitan mix of proportions, patterns, and light.
"Living with art is more important than people give credit for. We don’t have to make beautiful things but it’s a human drive to engage with these stories and objects."
- Brian Rideout
MOOD 4: DIMORA DI CAMPAGNA
Set in the countryside near Milan, this unassuming northern Italian home is full of quiet charm. With a circular plan wrapped around a courtyard and surrounded by parkland, it offers a serene and grounded sense of place.
“A good painting needs a little bit of bad painting in it, a bit of roughness gives it authenticity.”
- Brian Rideout
The paintings will be on display at the GUBI Showroom in Nordhavn, Denmark, located at Orientkaj 18-20, throughout 2025.