Luisa Rabbia has been interested in the body as a metaphor since her early works. The bridge she has built between this subject and all kinds of possible connections such as cosmic, philosophical, religious and existential is what has kept this obsession vital and in continuous evolution.

The artist’s work is based on drawing, seen as a knot that unites rational construction with the imagination, one mark after another. The relationship between drawing and time and space, being and becoming, figure and ground, have led Luisa Rabbia to work with paper, paper-mache and porcelain. Old Man, a sculpture representing an old seated man, is absorbed in a never-ending sleep. Roots entangle him and seemingly take him back to the earth where he came from. Brain, is a large porcelain wall piece representing a centenary olive tree. The infinite lines which make up the bulging roots of the tree draw similarities to capillary vessels and all together seem to constitute a brain tissue. Cracks naturally occurred on the process of making and the drawing, slowly recorded the time passing by. A Tree to Walk With is a sculpture representing a portable tree that could function as a pet or a traveling companion.

All the works in the exhibition seem to come out, be composed of, or wrapped up in multiple layers of roots and blood vessels. Their graphic similarities seem to remind us of a primal cosmic unity which still entangles us even when our daily life wants us to believe in separation from each other and from the nature we leave in. Entering Luisa Rabbia’s world is like reentering this forgotten unity. The secret life of objects that surrounds us during the unraveling of our lives comes to life, like creatures in a fairytale, where the fantastic is removed and the existential appears in the layers of our personal and collective experience.