Jose Lerma

It is rare to see artists who have a sense of humor… Jose Lerma however is different. Born in Spain and raised in Puerto Rico, the young artist currently lives in the United States and draws inspiration from his personal history. Lerma is also inspired by historical figures and events; he claims (courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery), “all art is about other art and about your parents.”

The artist’s work illustrates the rise and fall of powerful historical figures. He has used Puerto Rico’s wars as inspiration. Completely opposite from that, he has been known to portray well-known historical figures such as Samuel Bernard. The recognizable banker from 18th-century Europe was one of the most famous and most wealthy… Lerma portrayed the interesting figure in a unique way: by building layers of ball-pen doodles.

Examining Lerma’s work, you find multiple cartoon-style drawings finding their way onto canvas, each looking for their own place to shine. Once the portraitures are formed, they are combined with everyday items that frame the oversized portrait. The combination of the materials on a large scale enables the subjects to appear as monumental silhouettes of Baroque figures.

It is clear that he likes to explore how to make the art of painting different. In such, he evidently understands that historically, paintings were used as a source of demonstrating power and status. About the originals that he was inspired by, the artist told Luxe Source, “Often the content of what interests me is either very dry, or maybe sad or tragic. So I try to give it a very happy, approachable, friendly aesthetic. The idea is that you could be a child and enjoy my work, but also as an adult for completely different reasons.”

One of Lerma’s signature techniques involves mixing pigment with construction materials and store bought binders. This method started because of a simple reason… economy. As a student, the artist did not have a lot of disposable income; thus, the materials around him became his supplies.

As he applies the paint in big strokes using large materials such as wallpaper brushes and brooms, Lerma plays with perspective. He adds, “The idea is to enlarge the gesture as much as possible so that the work is not just big, but a small work made big, so that you feel smaller by extension and it puts you in a childlike state of mind.”

Lerma has several methods in his arsenal… and he uses a plethora of materials to achieve his desired result. The end-product slowly reveals itself as an investigation is conducted. Bold gestures become collages of silicone within the multi-layered paintings. Inside the artwork are historical and personal references.

In the past, Lerma spent a lot of time studying the paint strokes of Abstract Expressionist masters. He remains resolute in that abstraction as an art form is generally aggressive. Lerma showcases that abstract painting is actually a function of quiet and slow painting.

Recently, Lerma spent time doodling all of the Art Institute’s European paintings on cocktail napkins. Once he’s finished, he will photograph the napkins and the plan is that he will digitally collage them into one large piece. He says, “I have done all the European painting in the west wing. My goal is to finish all the European paintings from the Renaissance to the Impressionists.” What a sight that ought to be… when he finishes, he’ll stack all those paintings next to each other in the same logic that the curators presented when setting up the galleries. He finishes, “The overall feeling of condensing and collapsing the images’ space is claustrophobic and optically charged. It’s a caricature of a museum experience.”

We anxiously await…