Justine Rivas
Plateaus
Et al. Gallery
620 Kearny St.
my hair had reached its next stage of length
when I was first initiated
into adult structures
unfocused, unravelled, unforgiving
with uneven breasts
mistaken for a child
by other children
who were swimming and
throwing a football
grabbing my wrist and
although I must be nearly twice their age
I was frightened
charmless without words
in a country where top priests rot and
lingon berries are dirt
I was homesick for Mentos and coke
my benedict asleep and I am eating
cabbage wrapped meats
what did you dream of
was it a dream of ancient pain
like Wei Sheng, I have faith in holding pillars
why should I look elsewhere?
if you are coming down the Three Narrows
write to me beforehand
for I will meet you only halfway
Justine Rivas (b. 1991, Phoenix, Arizona) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. Rivas' practice focuses largely on oil painting incorporating the sentimental through the figurative. Typically personal in content, Rivas paints from routine moments involving movement and space, often times centered on the domestic or the ephemeral as it relates to memory. Solo exhibitions include Phaedra Bathes in Fabuloso with Et al. at Vacation (New York) and Memory Foam at Alter Space (San Francisco). Select group exhibitions include The Valley (Taos, NM), Mission Comics, Guerrero Gallery, Book and Job, and Ladybug House, all in San Francisco, CA. In 2018 she was a participant in Summer Literary Seminar in Tbilisi, Georgia and she received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2014. Rivas is currently pursuing her MFA from UCLA.