Luisa Rabbia. Death&Birth

About

Luisa Rabbia's practice is deeply rooted in the dialectic between inner and outer space, between the phenomenological and the symbolic. Rabbia’s paintings operate on a macro and micro level, making reference to the touch and form of the human body, and depicting systems where everything is relational. Each work’s foundation is a field of deep blue acrylic on canvas, upon which colored pencil marks are intricately layered to create a glowing palette of yellow, red and violet hues. The surfaces of her paintings are a complex geography where the organic and human merge.

This exhibition is the culmination of the trilogy Love-Birth-Death, of which Love, 2016 is currently being exhibited in Rabbia's solo show at the Collezione Maramotti, in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Love-Birth-Death each measure 108”x201” (274 x 513 cm). In both Birth and Death, 2017 the cycle of life is explored as a process of transformation rather than as an experience with a distinct beginning and end. A countless number of fingerprints cover the surface of each painting alluding to individuality as well as to layers of marks left by humanity over the course of time. Both paintings reflect on interdependence, autonomy, separation and dissolution.

Death&Birth will be accompanied by a series of three smaller paintings titled LingamYoni. The titles of these paintings refer to the lingam and yoni shapes in Hindu culture, which are stylized representations of the male and female reproductive organs, often placed together to denote transcendental potentiality or the origin of the universe. Rabbia’s LingamYoni paintings represent three portraits depicting a belly button, like a stamp that both asserts individuality and links to the life that came before. These works merge genders, the surfaces are tactile, almost skin-like.