You are the others: Luisa Mè

Union Gallery is pleased to present You are the others, with a new body of paintings by Italian duo, Luisa Mè, curated by William Gustafsson.

We greet you with numerous flamboyantly yet scaly dressed figures staring at you from every angle, exposing the transposition of their fears, worries and human distress. You are the others. Discomforts find ease in the darkness of the night, far from light they are not afraid of existing in the shadows. Darkness, movement, and visual noise coexist with a dispersion and search for humanity. Everyday worries alienate themselves, they find a safe place through dark outfits, a disguise for exorcising value. They feel right in our shadows. Light, nature, reality, the present are so scary.

I will help you climb higher by letting me trample
However hard the blow can be I will focus on the contact Better than nothing, I’m looking for solace
I will help you climb higher by letting me trample
However hard the blow can be I will focus on the contact However hard the blow can be I will focus on the contact
I don’t mind my spine
Do you hit me to stay upright?
Do you dress with thorns not to attack but to protect yourself? Attack for self-defense
Surrender to win

Luisa Mè’s paintings dive into their personal existence, questioning all which is true. As if looking through a microscope into the purgatory of anxiety, the vivid psychedelic backgrounds are a melee of thoughts and emotions; creating a foundation for the debauchery which is laid on top of the works. Bordering between consciousness and a nightmare, pleasure and pain, Luisa Mè’s paintings hold the apprehension of their own psychology. The expressive anthropomorphic figures are often left without arms, unable to grab; the contortion of legs are the aggressors of these skeletal figures. Heels and spikes threaten each character. Dark, smudged, faces populate the canvases taking influence from classical Italian paintings from the Renaissance, a melancholic nod to Luisa Mè’s roots. Luisa Mè create an immense installation provoking a state of beauty within the torments which trouble them.

Luisa Mè, Luca Colagiacomo (b. 1990, Milan, Italy) and Francesco Pasquini (b. 1991, Pesaro, Italy) have collaborated since 2016 and were educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, IT (2011- 2015). Recent exhibitions include Her Gallery, London, UK (2018) and Luisa Mè, Look at me!, T293, Rome, IT (2017)

Luisa Mè live and work in London, UK