Looking at Lola Gil‘s newest solo show, Filling Up Rooms, it reminded us of something she told us just a year ago in our Winter 2024 Quarterly: “I was always being asked about what kind of paintings I created and I wasn’t sure how to categorize them. I was misdiagnosed as a surrealist in my early years, and though my first exposure and inspirations were surrealist-inspired, my work is grounded in storytelling, and escapist imagery, still photography, and is figuratively-motivated. I want the painting to say, ‘Come inside right now, and as you’re looking at me (the painting) this is happening right now.’ Narrative Escapism comprises two beautiful words that can make you daydream just by saying them out loud. These works only live if someone is viewing them and going somewhere because of them.”
Lola is a constant explorer of space. The space of rooms, the space of a canvas, the space in our memory. The gallery notes that her works are a “struggle between the oft-found comfort of solitude and the deep-seated yearning for attachment, frequently expressed through a metaphor of domesticity.” This attaches to the idea of space, how we surround ourselves with escapist qualities and find memory permeating our every decision. How we define ourselves by an environment of our making. —Evan Pricco
