Larissa Borteh Heat Rash September 17 – November 23, 2022

Vernissage: September 17, 4–7 pm

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Folio is pleased to present Heat Rash, a solo exhibition by Chicago-based painter Larissa Borteh.

Heat Rash features works produced by Borteh over the past two years. While Borteh’s previous work focused on interiority and psychological experience, the unprecedented phenomenon of being trapped indoors for days at a time drove her to long for the exterior, which in turn brought new subject matter into her work. In these paintings, Borteh attempts to find passage to a different world, to develop an escape from her own mental and physical clutter.

These are not actual places, they are all inventions assembled through emotion. Drowning, sinking, buoyancy, renewal, regrowth, beginnings: each phenomenon coexists in an uneasy suspension. These paintings evoke unending emotional space where everything is happening all at once. Within them is the restlessness of constant rebuilding.

Larissa Borteh (b. 1988) was born in Columbus, Ohio. She received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2010, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Recent exhibitions include Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Zolla Lieberman Gallery, Chicago; Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; Minotaur Projects, Los Angeles; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills; The Union League Club, Chicago; Skylight Gallery, New York; and the Visual Arts Gallery, New York. Larissa has been a recipient of the George and Ann Siegel Fellowship; Leon Levy Foundation Grant; Dave Bown Projects Award. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont; The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM), Reykjavik, Iceland; Kunstnarhuset Messen, Ålvik, Norway; and was a MacDowell Fellow. Larissa currently lives and works in Chicago, where she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute.