May 18 - November 18, 2008, Foyer Project Space
Queer Interiors and Phthalo Blue, a series of new site-specific wall paintings by David Lozano, will enliven the foyer of the Art Center for the summer. The title references the electric color phthalo blue or Phthalocyanine, a synthetic pigment that Lozano favors in his paintings for its brilliant and intense quality creating a euphoric mood on canvas. For the Art Center, Lozano will make a large installation of wall paintings that wrap seductive glimpses of bodies and bedrooms in drapes of rich color, leaving the imagination to fill in the blanks.
“Queer sublime” is the term Lozano uses to describe his saturated color paintings that infuse ornamentation and texture with erotically-charged scenery. According to the artist, this style of painting provides a way of navigating through the pop cultural wasteland that is so heavily influenced by gay culture and vice versa. Lozano’s work juxtaposes celestial motifs with commentary on the complexity of carnal desires. His paintings incorporate imagery of stars and nebulae, but Lozano’s motivation is the steamy nature of human intimacy. Though his romanticized depictions of cosmic bodies seem to signal something alien and inaccessible, his work investigates one of the fundamental human experiences—intimacy, which can sometimes feel just as unfamiliar.
David Lozano received a BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2001 and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003. His work has been shown at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. He was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors grant in 2004 and was an Artadia Grant finalist for Chicago in 2006. Lozano currently teaches painting, drawing, and digital media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.