NYAB Event - Luisa Rabbia “Drawing”

Luisa Rabbia “Drawing”

Peter Blum Gallery

This event has ended.

Luisa Rabbia comes from Turin, Italy, where she studied in the atmosphere of the Arte Povera movement. In her work, she explores the internal lives of individuals in relation to others and their environment. In the exhibition, she continues to investigate shared human experience.

The color blue plays an important role in her practice, calling to mind the blood-rich veins of the human vascular system. The artist views the color blue as a unifier representing the universality of human kind.

Two diptychs in the show depict pairs of faces connected by intertwining root-like forms. The facial skin here becomes a terrain where psychological states are mapped and super-imposed. As for the group of sculptures on view, Rabbia draws faces on found rocks which she specially prepares. The gender and race of these individuals are often difficult to discern.

One monumental work in the exhibition, NorthSouthEastWest, 2014 is a four-panel drawing on paper mounted onto stretched linen canvases. Vein-like roots radiate from the central form. The process of drawing transforms the subject into a luminous volume floating on the surface of blue. The panels both segment the overall form and define the borders of the four geographic quadrants alluding to what is divided and what is shared.

In Pathway, 2014, the surface of the painting resembles a rugged landscape with a river or gap splitting the drawing into two physical locations. Rabbia uses the shape of her own fingerprints to transform a mark of individuality into an expression of collectivity.