Laura Krifka
Laura Krifka
Smile, 2024
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 in (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to present Laura Krifka: Carousel, the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Carousel brings together a new series of provocative figurative paintings that question the social constructs of desire. The exhibition runs from September 14 through October 26, 2024, with an artist’s reception to be held on September 21st from 4 to 7 pm. Gallery programs in conjunction with the exhibition will be announced.
The revolutions of carousels, with their interplay of monotony and shifts in perspectives, serve as a compelling approach for Krifka to explore cycles and breakdowns of feminine identity. She considers the weight of society’s gaze and describes “an experience that is constantly fragmenting and reforming, and then falling apart again." From its projections of beauty and embodiment of pleasure, to its anxieties of immobility against the momentum of aging, Krifka's “carousel” plays with the social constructs of feminine desire framed by a world that seeks to define and control its edges.
The paintings in Carousel continue Krifka's examination of popular culture's obsession with gender and desire amid heated political agendas, and present a deeper investigation into how these portrayals affect our perception and treatment of others and ourselves. Krifka’s subjects exist in candid moments, framed by psychologically charged vignettes of domestic interiors, provoking conversations of power and agency. The works revel in ambiguity with figures cropped by the edges of the canvases, shadows, or architectural details, deliberately fracturing spaces and bodies. Patterns and forms repeat across multiple canvases, with each painting offering inconspicuous motifs that do not immediately reveal themselves.
Throughout, Krifka’s inquiries echo and call us to consider, “Who has the power to decide the fate of our bodies? How does our framing create our identity and, ultimately, who holds the lens?”
Laura Krifka (b.1985, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in San Luis Obispo, CA where she serves in the studio art faculty at California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo. Krifka received her MFA from UC Santa Barbara in 2010 and her BFA from California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo in 2008, following earlier studies at Newbold College in England and Avondale College in Australia. Krifka’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Xioa Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China.