13624 NW First Avenue
Miami, FL 33168
Ph. 305.688.3972
E-mail: Info@CerjLaLonde.com
CerjLaLonde.com
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.”
- Leo Rosshandler | International Art Critics Association
“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.”
- Antonina Zaro | (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.)
“Cerj, we are absolutely blown away by your magnificent painting… 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 our hearts…”
- Christine Becket | (Private collector)
THE MULTIPLE GAZE
of
CERJ LALONDE
by Amalia Caputo
Cerj Lalonde is an artist, and certainly not an ordinary one. He 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.
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.
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.
LaLonde, The Painter
Cerj Lalonde works his painting with a conceptual approach, as an attempt to restate the validity of painting as a practice per-se. His abstract language ranges from lyric abstractionist pieces to many personal interpretations on art history masterpieces, as specific reflections upon geometric abstract paintings like Malevich´s black square series, or Albers study of color, among others.
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.
In the meanwhile, there is a time frame between the moment when the artist finishes his work and it gets shown. This space of time is silence. It can be said that the gap between the act of painting and its way out of the studio has had Lalonde wondering about other strategies of approaching the viewer, the critic, and to challenge the art world as a system.
New Media's and
Technology
In his body of work related to the Internet, the use of language can be established as the first notable addition where the silent scream that comes from his paintings invades the screen and transforms it into words. We can feel the imperative urge to communicate. Lalonde addresses everyone and no one, and a certain/uncertain dialogue is established between him and the anonymous viewer/Web surfer/browser who reads it.
Lalonde has produced multiple web sites MyArtBaselMiamiBeach.com, HirokoMusic.com. With this media, he has taken over a physical/nonphysical space to express his ideas about the act of seeing, of looking, and getting intoxicated by the gaze, by the sight, by the cognitive look, and the subjective one. Another interesting aspect is the inclusion of his images as an artist in several ways. For example, in SELF PORTRAIT AS A FAMOUS ARTIST he presents himself in all the archetypical attire of the romanticized representation of the artist. Lalonde has reverted all his irony and sarcasm as images that appear as brushstrokes on his Web sites. Another image that frequently appears is the sweet face of a very young woman, who looks at the browser with sweetness and nostalgia. As websites are build through layers, Lalonde has as well, constructed layers of impact, thought, and reflection, by means of the multiplicity of images that appear, ranging from his own paintings, installations, portraits, and text.
He is interested in what defines art, who validates artwork, how artist’s success has a strong pull to media and critic dependency. Lalonde points out these issues as loud as a silent scream. Phrases such as the Dominance of Curatorial Ideology, Global Mono Cultural Art Discourse or Hegemony of the Global Curatorial Class are samples of titles that frame parts of his Web visual discourses.
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.
contact: Cerj LaLonde
address: 13624 NW First Avenue
address:
city: Miami
state: FL
zip: 33168
phone: 305.688.3972email: Info@CerjLaLonde.com
url: CerjLaLonde.com
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