Benjamin Cabral uses rhinestones, mirrors, and imitation pearls to produce the highly textured surfaces of his vibrant paintings and sculptures. Belying the sparkling materials, Cabral’s artworks often convey gloomy or ambivalent feelings and the artist’s interest in the intersections between nostalgia and trauma. Cabral begins many of his artworks by creating digital drawings on his iPad, a task the artist describes as a “form of meditation.” He typically creates autobiographical self-portraits, depicting himself as a red-headed boy in settings that are inspired by personal memories and distorted by his imagination. Cabral often portrays his avatar with a squiggly line for a mouth, rendering his facial expression somewhat ambiguous. In Swimming in Mission Bay (2021) for instance, it’s difficult to determine whether the swimming figure is happy or sad. Dolphins, sharks, and other aquatic imagery are also prominent motifs throughout his work; some of Cabral’s paintings symbolically allude to his mother, portrayed as an orca whale due to the species’ strong