▷ Lucas Blalock | Buy Original Art Online

United States • 1978

Biography

American artist Lucas Blalock creates works with both analog and digital cameras. His oeuvre is filled with photographs of domestic scenes, still lives, and portraits. All the images he takes he augments in Photoshop. However, where other artists try to erase the working of digital software, Blalock embraces all the imperfections by putting them front and center. In his work, one can immediately see the digital modifications. This loud declaration of his working process has captured the attention of art lovers and critics alike. Today the artist's work is part of several prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Lucas Blalock (born in 1978 in Asheville, North Carolina) had a traumatic accident when he was ten that left a long-lasting impact on his life and artistic career. When his thumb was crushed in an accident on a Disney World ride, he received experimental surgery in which his big toe was surgically attached to his hand. The tragic event shaped Blalock's artistic expression, best seen in how he creates misshaped portraits and disturbing still lives. His art evokes a sense of unease and disquiet that seems to grow to more one looks at the work. Yet an ever-present sense of childlike optimism and crude humor brings lightness to his art.

Grotesque often appears in Lucas Blalock's work, like in (2014) which features a watermelon decorated with human fingertips. At the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the artist showcased three billboards entitled . Each shows a different representation of a donkey that he has digitally manipulated. Here he goes a step further when for the Biennial, he developed a mobile application that enabled him to change reality on the spot digitally.

The artist enjoys showing the process behind photographic images. He prefers using large-format camera on film. Of all the subjects he has photographed, his favorite remains “," which he finds on the streets or in trinket stores. Blalock said:

Throughout his career, Blalock had numerous international solo exhibitions, including (2023) at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich and (2022) at Bradley Ertaskiran, Quebec. Group shows include (2023) at Shulamit Nazarian in Los Angeles and (2022) at LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Lucas Blalock lives and works in New York.

Nationality

American artists