Luisa Rabbia. Inferno.

About

Throughout her career, Luisa Rabbia’s work has explored the psychosocial nuances of humanity from the individual to the collective experience. Her intuitive and emotional approach leaves behind a collection of traces on the surface of the canvas that while evoking temporality also allow for reflections on the spiritual.

In her newest series, taking visual cues from Sandro Botticelli’s Map of Hell (1480-1495)—a key drawing from a series of 92 commissioned to illustrate Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy--Rabbia reimagines Hell within the landscape of the human body. She eschews religious connotations to instead investigate more personal, terrestrial Hells that are part of the human experience. In the works, Botticellli’s circles of Hell become rib cages, their bodies stripped bare of skin and flesh as Rabbia excavates the surface, scraping away paint to reveal visceral, expressive worlds of inner turmoil.

The exhibition Inferno will present a group of large oil on canvas paintings as well as a series of nine works on paper titled The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces, which specifically represents conditions such as anxiety, helplessness, loss, separation, war, loneliness, injustice, and pregnancy with an unwanted child. The paintings expand on this theme to include manifestations of evil using the same corporeal composition, thereby further addressing the nature of suffering in the world today.

Luisa Rabbia (b. 1970, Turin, Italy) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, Italy. Solo museum exhibitions include: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA; Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Italy; Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy. Group exhibitions include: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, NY; Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Montecito, CA; Reggia di Venaria Museum, Venaria, Italy; Manifesta 12, Palazzo Drago, Palermo, Italy; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy; Biennale del Disegno, Museo della Citta, Rimini, Italy; Lismore Castle, Waterford, Ireland; Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York, NY; Maison Particulière, Brussels, Belgium; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Museo del Novecento, Milan, Italy; MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Rome, Italy; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China.