J e f r e i d
Essential Work focuses on the isolating effects of the pandemic and its impact on workers. It shows the time spent focusing on nothing but work and survival, something no one was prepared to handle after the shut down. To accurately portray that feeling beyond the art itself, some pieces are featured separately. The stand-alone car parts represent the pieces of a whole that, for the time being, have been torn apart. Lotti’s observational paintings communicate not only the painstakingly long hours we’ve all dealt with during the pandemic, but the progression of detail as a result of the eventual new day-to-day routine. In this exhibition, we hope to retell the
story you’ve all experienced--from the eyes of an essential worker.
NSU Museum Studies Class, Davie, FL. 2021
Observe Lotti’s radiography of the “efichensi” (a vernacular pronunciation of efficiency), that affordable living space that has become the door to the American dream for many immigrants and crucial to understanding the sociology of Cuban-American immigration; or Miguel Saludes’ pixilation and augmentation of reality, enlarging the American landscape, from a field of flowers to a concrete wall, scrutinizing the surrounding, processing its dualities to the limits of abstraction until digested into a totally new identity; or Labañino’s contractile reality that merges different points of view into the same plane, allowing blurred memories and details to coexist in the same space. These three artists are crossed by their hyphenated identities, Cuban-Americans belonging and bonding like most of us, challenging traditional painting to express their personal journey into a new ecosystem, a journey that we are from now on thankful they shared with us.
Joaquin Badajoz, Manhattan, NY. 2017
On the other hand, Cuban-born Lotti- who came to the U.S. at age 11- is exhibiting a series of monotypes, one-of-a-kind images that employ print-making techniques.Some of these monochromatic works use the painter’s palette as a plate; they all contrast the black ink with the paper to combine myths, sexual archetypes, and child-like dream images in surprising ways.
Jesús Manuel Rojas Torres, WUM. 2013
Lotti’s impressive series of monoprints, many using a large painter’s palette as a plate, bring us into the an arena of the unconscious where symbols do battle with they’re alleged meanings. The locomotive, the sea, the moon, even the figure are made to confront the greater force of what they mean. It is a rebellion of signifieds against the signifiers. Eros, anger, annihilation, despair are loosened upon the visual icons and dreamt codes that evoked them for millennia, but no more.
Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Miami, FL. 2012