Boston Globe feature: Graduate Painting Student Kayla Suverkrubbe (CFA’17) Named Among “Six Artists to Watch”

Expect to see more in the future from these up-and-coming artists

KAYLA SUVERKRUBBE, 25

Painting

Boston University

Suverkrubbe’s squirmy, giant, shaped canvas bubbles off the wall, which makes sense, given the gyrations of the people depicted on it. It’s a comic marvel of sex and gore, with hearts bursting from chests, knobby, tangled limbs, and jutting penises. Each of seven scenes boils down to an unsettling relationship between the characters.

“It’s about my fault in my relationships with other people. Not necessarily romantic or sexual,” says Suverkrubbe. “It’s about interpersonal conflict.

The painter’s neurotic, graphic style recalls R. Crumb. She spices her Pepto-pink palette with fiery reds and yellows. One figure wears a huge grin and cuddles up to another with coins covering eyes. In another, a pigtailed figure feasts on the heart of a character munching on an apple.

“In some [scenes], there’s a willingness on the part of the other person,” says the artist. “I’d like to get to the point where it feels like they’re both aggressors.”