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CONTEMPORARY ARTIST
AVAILABLE PAINTINGS:
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- - Antonina Zaro* has written: Although a diligent experimenter that also applies a complex assortment of mediums (photography, video, installation, performance, digital work), Cerj Lalonde remains above all an extraordinary painter.
- - Christine Becket** has written:
Cerj, we are absolutely blown away by your magnificent work…
Our whole house will never be the same again. It is like our home has “come into its own”, like it has found its soul…
Cerj, thank you, thank you, every day I see something new in your work, and I know this will always be so, even after years and years.
You have given us a living being, a magnificent work of art. Thank you, from both James and me, from the children as well, from the bottom of ou hearts…
- - Leo Rosshandler*** has written:
Cerj Lalonde's art cannot be confined to local or national borders. The artist is part of the great non-objective movement born from analytical cubism, which ranges from the Russian avant-garde to present day minimalism, post-modern abstraction and post-conceptual art. Lalonde situates himself at the meeting point of these various tendencies and thereby develops a highly personal visual language. It seems to me that this painter actually opens new insights into the aesthetic trends on which his work is based. He extends their scope by adding a subtle psychological tone as well as a perception of greater intimacy. Indeed, his practice of abstraction carries with it a philosophical dimension.
- - Amalia Caputo **** has written:
Cerj Lalonde moves smoothly from the canvas to the camera, from computers to installations, producing and showcasing an extraordinarily rich and complex body of work created during the last 20 years. His purpose is to pursue a direct and, in each case, a different communication with the spectator... His paintings, installations, photographs and web pages are intended to function each in its own way, as an overt revision and critique of the contemporary art system, as they establish parallel dialogues between the artist, the public, and the curatorial values...
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* Antonina Zaru is an Italian curator and art critic who has organized several exhibitions and retrospectives (from Miro and Magritte to Richard Serra and Nam June Paik) in Museums around the world (New York, Washington, Tokyo, Basel, Austria, Spain, Korea, Rome, Milan, Venice). She is a regulator contributor on art for several art journals and catalogues.
** Christine Becket; Private collector
*** Leo Rosshandler; International Art Critics Association
**** Amalia Caputo is a contributor to the publications Extracamara Magazine, Caracas and Arte Al Dia International, Miami. She holds a Bachelor of Art and Art History from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she graduated with honors in 1988. In 1995 she received a Master of Arts in Photography at New York University and the International Center of Photography. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Caracas, Barcelona, Mexico City, New York and Miami. She lives and works in Miami, Florida.
of CERJ LALONDE by Amalia Caputo
It can be said that Lalonde works as a team with himself, not
only to develop his artwork, but also to sharpen his personal ideas
about contemporary culture, trends, criticism and, more importantly, as
a critic to the art system’s meritocracy. Lalonde is putting a lot of
time, energy and thought into his new media and technology productive
structure, where he can directly address his issues, mainly those
regarding the art world.
Lalonde, the painter
Lalonde holds many layers as an artist. His years of experience as a painter and thirst for art history and critique have helped him develop into a consciously literate artist. Formally, his domain of techniques ranges from drawing, printing, and primarily acrylic painting by means of a wild contrasting palette. But more than any type of formalism, Lalonde´s work is a strong statement about painting itself and how he approaches abstraction from a conceptual viewpoint. His paintings celebrate the power and meaning of color and texture, the imperative voice of contrast and stridence, and the million of possible solutions for a white canvas. I also see in his artwork a psychoanalytical interpretation of art, and a curiously unintentional approach to oriental philosophy appears throughout his multi sized body of work.
In many of his canvas, the presence of the square has been integrated as
an element of equilibrium and unity to the soul of the artwork itself.
Lalonde is specifically interested in the qualities of painting as a
media: “What Painting and only Painting can do”. Of all arts, painting
is perhaps the most intimate and personal of art languages. It reaches
the viewer at a last phase, in the gallery, or museum, or exhibition
space.
New media's and technology
In his installations and performances such as THE NO SHOW, and WORKING
TO BECOME RICH AND FAMOUS SO YOU CAN LOVE ME FOREVER, Lalonde discusses
the notion of the self and identity, the artist as a social figure, and
the severe critique of the contemporary art system, and society at
large. He questions the validity and the ideology of the curatorial
establishment, the marketing methods, and the issues of the self - as he
queries the conventional paradigm of the artist. In SEEING, a photographic installation that can be considered as a milestone in his work, he presents a dark room that has many different sized eyes that are looking at the viewer. An interesting aspect of Lalonde’s digital work is the presence of a perpetual reflection that not only shows the act of seeing itself, but in a more profound way it presents the subconscious mind of the viewer. He inverts his role of an artist and establishes a dialogue with the unconscious of the spectator, both through his installations and digital art work. He talks directly from the anonymity of the Internet to the subconscious of the viewer with phrases like HI!, WHERE ARE YOU? Or I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW YOU. Lalonde suggests a dialogue of affection and proximity with the anonymous viewer. He cries out for attention, asks questions, and asks for small reflections to be answered silently by the person who is on the other side of the computer, establishing a metaphor for the notion of the multiplicity of the self. But above all, the artist states that communication as art is always subjective. Last but not least, we should briefly acknowledge Lalonde´s work in public places, within the streets of Miami’s main art areas, mainly the Wynwood and Design Districts. Lalonde has taken over the front of galleries, sidewalks, and walls with the graffiti ://eye_luv-you:)), the eye installation WHO IS LOOKING AT WHO and the FREE sign. These street interventions are a courageous attempt of blasting pedestrians’ consciousness to an impermanent moment of reflection. By this strategy, he is inserting human condition to human creation, relating in a logical discourse; human being makes art, human being sees art, therefore, art sees us, and art is human. Why does he do it? Who is it addressed to? The probable answer is to all of us and to him. Cerj Lalonde has decidedly captured a huge space of silence that historically has isolated the artist from the spectator of the artwork. As silent as painting itself can be, it is as loud as his digital work and public space interventions are. It would not be fair to separate all these different facets as an artist, as if we were speaking of different persons. Lalonde´s whole body of work is connected through formal elements that appear in any media he uses. The square, for example, is an important image, as well as the silhouetted eye that appears in paintings, installations, graphics, and throughout his Web pages. Lalonde formally uses certain elements as creating a personal specific language that conveys additional meaning to every art piece he develops.
The artist is interested in the notion of the spectator, in conveying
messages to the unconscious in a psychoanalytical way, whether it is in
painting or in the direct phrases he lets go by browsing through his web
pages. Does he expect answers from us? Is he angry? Is he talking to us?
Is he looking at me? Is he really talking to me? Can he see me? These
are questions that rise once we know his work. ▀▀
About the author.
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CERJ LALONDE BORN: MONTREAL LIVES & WORKS: MIAMI |
Information about the paintings:
Call 305-688-3972
or email at info@cerjlalonde.com
THANK YOU
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© CERJ LALONDE
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