Kristy Luck at Philip Martin Gallery

On view: January 11–February 22, 2020

Kristy Luck is interested in melancholy. “I’m interested in how these emotional experiences have been dismissed or devalued when associated with the ‘feminine mind,’” she explains in the press release for her exhibition at Phillip Martin in Culver City. Luck’s sensuous paintings merge colorful abstractions with illusions to the body. While there are a couple of hands reproduced throughout, most of her marks are less clear, evoking internal cells and tissues. As lawmakers, scientists, and the culture at large continue debating (and misunderstanding) women’s bodies, Luck’s paintings take on a sly rigor. Her abstractions point to the unknowable, and thereby threatening, recesses of both the female mind and body.