José Lerma: Bayamonesque

In a world where noise and commotion are increasingly prevalent, and where it seems out of fashion to not make one’s presence loudly felt, José Lerma gives a face to the bystanders and the silent witnesses in the back. But only in moderation—the faces he presents to us are, after all, stripped down to their most basic features. Highly stylized and rigid, they retain only the bare essentials of facial structure in what the artist calls “the summary of a portrait.” His paintings go beyond mere representation, teetering on the edge of abstraction.