Luisa Rabbia (b. 1970, Turin, Italy) blends the distinctions made between the human and the natural, expressing solidarity with the cosmos through the organic, bodily landscapes of her expansive paintings. The scale of Rabbia's paintings suits the themes she explores, oftentimes depicting overlapping abstracted figures joining and breaking apart, seemingly overcoming their physicality. She alludes to interconnected natural processes forming a thread between microcosms and macrocosms and interweaving them in a nebulous primordial state. Continually in flux and transforming, her forms created in expressive hues also evoke spiritual transitions. Upon closer viewing and bringing this substantial work to a more intimate level, her physical and intuitive process becomes visible with its rhythmically scraped paint, the stratification of pencil marks, and imprints of fingertips. Rabbia alludes to the minute traces that each person leaves over the course of a lifetime, yet simultaneously asserts an expansive and interconnected vision of a wider universe.

Luisa Rabbia lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is represented in NY by Peter Blum Gallery. 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; 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.

Rabbia was a Visiting Professor in Drawing at Harvard University, Cambridge, in 2013/2014. She received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2022 and NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Painting in 2007.

Ecstasy, 2019 colored pencil, pastel, acrylic and oil on canvas 102 x 47 inches (260 x 119 cm) Courtesy Peter Blum Gallery, New York Photo credit: Dario Lasagni