PRESENTATION: José Lerma-MADRIYAL

José Lerma is a multimedia artist who works primarily in portraiture. Lerma’s practice is most responsive to not only the social and material conditions of the cities he inhabits, but also to the works of art put on display by their institutions. He has described his practice as akin to that of a landscape painter, turning his eye into a sieve able to distill and record telling details about worlds physically proximate to him.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Almine Rech Gallery Archive

For José Lerma, art history is more than a source of inspiration — it’s a field of power, where images shape and challenge social and political ideas. His recent series of portraits explores this idea through paintings that avoid traditional notions of personality and focus instead on the material itself. Using a custom blend of acrylics that creates thick, sculptural textures, Lerma’s works exist somewhere between painting and sculpture. In “MADRIYAL”, a solo exhibition of nine works, Lerma presents portraits that are both faces and abstract forms. Each canvas balances elegance and excess: soft pastel colors and delicate female outlines meet bold, overflowing gestures of paint. Lerma calls this approach “the art of doing things wrong” — a way to question how painting can evolve. His work often spills beyond the edges of the canvas, engaging with the scale of the body, mixing humor and history in ways that are both playful and critical. Portraiture has always been central to Lerma’s practice, but he uses it not to capture likeness, rather to explore how representation relates to power. In earlier series, his subjects were forgotten historical figures or friends turned into models. In “MADRIYAL”, the figures are anonymous — imagined silhouettes that serve as frameworks for experimentation. These faces act less as portraits than as containers for color, gesture, and material exploration. Lerma’s use of subtle, luminous tones — a Mediterranean palette illuminated by an imagined light — recalls the calm, refined atmosphere of William H. Bailey’s work. Each painting follows a careful, almost ritual process. Lerma plans his forms and colors in advance, then mixes dense combinations of acrylic paint, synthetic binders, and construction materials. The paint is poured in a single, decisive movement — a gesture that leaves no room for correction. The canvases lie flat for ten days as the material slowly dries and solidifies before being lifted upright and revealed. Gesture is at the heart of Lerma’s art — the direct, physical connection between drawing and painting. From the dramatic gestures of Abstract Expressionism to Lichtenstein’s comic-style brushstrokes and the thick surfaces of Bram Bogart, Lerma reinterprets these histories with irony and exaggeration. His paintings turn quick, spontaneous marks into large, enduring forms, blending immediacy with precision. For many years, Lerma worked nomadically, creating site-specific projects with whatever materials he found on hand. Since settling in his studio in Puerto Rico, his approach has become more focused and reflective. The MADRIYAL series marks this shift — not a move toward repetition, but a deepening of his exploration of gesture and matter. Each work becomes an experiment, a way to keep questioning what painting can still do today.

Photo left: José Lerma, Madelyn, 2025, Acrylic on burlap, 81.3 x 61 cm, 32 x 24 in, © José Lerma, Courtesy the artist and Almine Rech Gallery. Photo right: José Lerma, Fania, 2025, Acrylic on burlap, 121.9 x 91.4 cm, 48 x 36 in, © José Lerma, Courtesy the artist and Almine Rech Gallery

Info: Almine Rech Gallery, 20 Avenue de la Costa, Monaco, Duration: 2/10/2025-16/1/2026, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, www.alminerech.com/