Few brushstrokes and a hefty quantity of acrylic colours are the tools of the trade used by José Lerma to trace the physionomy and, above all, the psychological states of the protagonists of his new personal exhibition at the Almine Rech. The spectator is placed in front of a gallery of portraits in which the somatic traits of the artist’s friends and neighbours - the artist lives in both San Juan and Chicago - are created with fleeting but well-measured brushstrokes and a palette of faint colours. The latter are laid out in an almost sculptural manner, contrasting with the flatness of the images, much akin to the classic portraits of Pop Art. The artist, as usual, is not interested in a process of pure reproduction, of faithfully depicting in an anatomically accurate way, the faces of his models but, rather, departing from the familiar to arrive at the unknown, the generic, the universal, carried upon these visages structured by abundant colour and sparse lines. References to the environment and nature - important elements for the artist who often paints “en plein air” - show up in several works, even if, in this case, the faces, with their absent gazes and deliberate incompleteness, do most of the work in fascinating, intriguing and disturbing the viewer.
.JPG/jcr%3Acontent)
