[Review] REBEKAH RUBALCAVA: IT HURTS TO KNOW at SEASONS LA
Show:
REBEKAH RUBALCAVA: IT HURTS TO KNOW
October 1 – October 30
Seasons LA, 908 S Olive Street, Los Angeles
Review by: Timothy LeBlanc
The small show of Rebekah Rubalcava at Seasons LA is her first solo with the gallery. It is expertly crafted. The works themselves draw viewers into the space, and almost certainly with a smile upon their face. Whether that smile stays or twist may be upon the viewers own read of the works.
Paintings and a couple of drawings show us a world that is enticing at first. They are familiar and sweet until one starts to look closely, seeing what lies just behind those gauzy red curtains. To that fire that lies just through the window.
The sweet strawberries held tight by the young woman in one painting, Fruits of My Labor, in a loving, almost revelatory embrace, are in another work, God Jam, held by a basket and stabbed through. Their neighbour in the hang continues this thread showing that same young woman, at least we assume, playing a game, stabbing that same knife into the ground just to the edge of her hand. This knife finds its way into a drawing as well, its stab through the bark of a tree provides the perfect place to hang her braid.
In most of the works, this juxtaposition between violence and sweetness is titillating, but contained. The fire stays trapped by the window. Not a drop of juice is spilled from the strawberries, though certainly ripe. Even the hand inches from being stabbed through has just one nail out of place.
There are two others though that make it clear that it will not be contained. That which we are told to hide, that bubbles just under the surface, will boil over. The artist, or her stand in, gets literally dragged through the mud, the violence has come home. In another milk is squeezed straight from the cow’s teat into her mouth.
The paintings lay right on the edge. Showing us the curtain and the wizard, or in this case, the artist. While they pull one into the artist, they also push one into themselves to look at what they have just under the surface. It is outlined well in a sentiment shared by the statement for the show. Just around the corner from this Eden, Hell awaits.