Laura Krifka at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles

On View: September 7–October 26, 2019

At Luis De Jesus in Culver City, Laura Krifka’s hyper-realistic figurative paintings build to create an uncanny mood. In each work, figures are placed within an interior domestic space, and subtle sexual cues build as you view the works. The breast of a sleepy figure mimics the egg-patterned wallpaper behind her; lemons in various stages of juicing are laid on a table next to a bare buttox. These more overt sexual themes are soon overtaken by more subtle ominous ones—strange shadows fall over the furniture in each painting, as if someone or something is looming just outside of the picture.  Her heavily patterned wallpapers flip between dimensions, at times appearing flat, and others strangely dimensional. Krifka intentionally breaks the rules of perspective, light, and repetition to make you feel unsettled as you view these works, although you may not be able to exactly pinpoint why.