Lala: The European Art Tour

Since her return to Paris last May, Lala Drona doesn’t seem to be able to keep her feet on the ground!  From France, to Spain and now to Portugal, her European tour is causing a media art frenzy!

In June 2018, Lala began her European tour at an art residency in Seville, Spain.  She spoke with the local media before her exhibition there “The Power of the Click” to tell them that she had been staying at the residency with seven other women artists from around the world.  “I had already lived with seven women once in a favela in Brazil in 2010, so I had my reservations about living with so many women at once, however, I was surrounded by so many talented, warm-hearted and hard-working artists.  I felt fortunate to be part of such an incredible team.”

“The Power of the Click” triptych by Lala Drona

She went on to explain that the ecosystem of feminine energy and experience intensified her feminist beliefs and contributed to the creation of her triptych “The Power of the Click”—a piece which examines how our digital actions on women’s bodies can have consequences in the real world.  She continues to have strong links with some of the artists, and says that these artists support and inspire each other everyday through voice message notes.

Lala returned to Paris in August, where she recharged and replenished her inspiration receptors.  It was during this time that she locked herself in to her workshop and broadened the scope through which she viewed her current area of artistic research.

Title: Speak or Listen, Artist: Lala Drona, Acrylic on canvas 50cm x 60cm Paris France, 2018

She had been sensing the world changing due to the growth of social media, a positive change where everyone started to have an opinion and exercised their voice.  And at the same time, a rise in the tendency to not listen to people when recounting their experiences.  “It’s important to remember that every conversation is not an attack or a debate, but that sometimes we are just sharing stories.

Title: Zoom in 1, Artist: Lala Drona, Acrylic on canvas 50cm x 60cm Paris France, 2018

We don’t always have to prepare a rebuttal.  I notice a lack of picking up on those conversational nuances, a lack of knowing when to listen, and when to speak.  That’s why I created this painting [Speak or Listen].”
Through September and October, Lala stayed in Paris to show her work in an exhibition in the Marais, and work in another art residency.  Here, she decided to create 3 different paintings on one canvas (each new painting covering the last).  This concept aimed to push the artist to experiment and develop her style without the pressure of “the end result” looming over.  “I took aspects from the first and second paintings that I liked, and integrated them into the third painting.

Title: Presenteeism, Artist: Lala Drona, Acrylic on canvas 100cm x 100cm Paris France, 2018

This method also gave me the freedom to try out new concepts in the first two draft paintings to know if I liked them enough to try them again in future paintings.”  She finished with the piece “Presenteeism,” a painting which examines how social media contributes to the overwhelming pressure to be seen/present at all times.  Lala plans to continue developing the geometric style found in this painting and further research the topic of how our digital lives on social media and the internet affect us IRL.  

 

During the months of November and December, Lala will participate in another artist in residency program in Alentejo, Portugal.  Here, she will continue research on her topic and create 2-3 painting to be shown in an exhibition in Portugal in December.  “I’m going into my project in Portugal with an open mind.  I’m waiting to be inspired by the moment.  I will definitely continue researching the same topic, but I have no images in mind yet.”

As far as the rest of the year goes, Lala has plenty of projects lined up.  We’ve heard rumours of Norway and New York, and have confirmed that she’ll have an exhibition in Lithuania this summer, and another in Finland in the fall. Get ready to see a lot of Lala Drona in 2019.

Jeff Southers, Columbus Ohio Journal of the Creative Arts

RECAP 2014

For those of you who desire a bit of consolidation of last year’s news:  The Lala World Recap 2014.

The city of lights has not been kind to Lala.  Arrested for spray painting the city walls and landing in urgent care are just a few of Lala Drona’s mishaps since her arrival.

Lala Drona in urgent care.

Lady Paris seems to have made Lala Drona harder, and the struggle has awakened her darker tendencies.  The year 2014 marks the year of transition, when Lala assumes her title of “art villain.”

On various occasions, Lala has compared her artistic process to theft.  “I steal others ideas because I don’t have my own” (2014 Art Prison Interview, L.D. Times Magazine). However, Lala pushed her artistic process an inch too far at an annual Paris “Perve Grandma Convention,” where she attempted to steal a Fred Le Chevalier piece from his oldest fan.

And Lala did not stop there.  Later on that year, she allegedly stole thousands of dollars from desperate YouTube insomniacs who had fallen victim to her fake sleep hypnosis video.  Although the media seemed to focus on Lala’s dark side, BOAF attempted to show the human behind the artist as well.

On April 24th, Lala traveled back to her home town Denver, Colorado in order to finalize preparations for a long-awaited hand transplant.  Comments filled message boards questioning the authenticity (and humanity) behind the art pieces created since Lala’s mechanical hand acquisition.

Lala caught on the streets of Paris wearing a splint.

How would the prosthetic affect her paintings and would it cramp her hand dancing style?  Before leaving Denver, Lala put on a spontaneous showing of her “Pre-Lala” work in an exclusive at-home art garage sale.

Along with the art garage sale last year, Lala committed other acts that were difficult to understand.  In 2014, Lala’s face appeared twice in the subway station.  The first was in Paris.  She appeared holding an apple in a

Translation: The #1 extramarital dating site made by women./ Dare. Bite. Taste.

Geeden advertisement for adulterous online-dating (Lala later  painted this experience). Next the artist appeared in a Berlin subway station, pants down in public.  While the Geeden advertisement left fans wondering if Lala had sold out, the no-pants Berlin display just left them confused.

Other stunts this year were much easier to understand.  To prove she isn’t all bad, Lala showed her support in adopting mutant bees in Paris.  Her videos went viral in France when she took to the streets and battled against censorship with her “Don’t Retouch This” campaign.  The artist “pulled a Banksy” when she sold originals of her artwork cheaply on the streets of Paris at the same time as galleries sold her work for thousands at the FIAC.  She even had a little fun as she was seen shopping and drinking champagne at Paris’ 2014 Vogue Fashion Night Out.

    However, it wasn’t all fun and games last year.  In 2014, Lala launched the construction of her Warholian dream:  The Lala Laboratory.  During the construction, tensions in art politics were at a high.  Muses were on strike and Lala’s unorthodox muse practices were thrown into the light.  

Journalists infiltrated what is thought to be the Lala Laboratory and discovered a Muse Sweatshop.   In an attempt to evade the Art Guild (the authorities), Lala invited journalists to a fake Lala Laboratory tour.  The police were called, and Lala Drona was arrested on the spot for trespassing.

The board members of the Art Guild found Lala guilty of Muse Abuse and Torture in the first degree and she was sentenced to spend one month in Paris Art Prison.  In prison, Lala Drona gave an interview, revealing for the first time ever, the method behind her madness.
Upon her release, a masked man broke into the prison mail room and stole Lala’s prison letters written to Shutupi.  The unknown man published the letters, revealing perhaps more than Lala would have liked regarding her feelings towards the Art Guild.

Out of jail and straight to work, the artist began preparations for her anticipated exhibition.  After one small exhibition in May 2013 on arrival in Paris, one year later, Lala landed a place on the walls of Düo Gallery.  The exhibition titled From the Bed to the Lab presented a retrospective look on her paintings created in Paris, all connected by the theme of the bed.

Photography and text by Richard Beban from Paris Play.

The three series exhibited were the Breast Series: a confrontation with a difficult past/ the bed a place of healing.  The Sexe Sans Sex Series: a series of wanderings, and an analysis of her outside world/ the bed a place of experimentation.  The Lala World Series: Lala’s new series, where she commits to painting the Lala World (the fictionalized articles found on Based on a Fact) in order to move freely between the virtual and the real, and create her own world/ the bed a place of dreams–and her dream: The Lala Lab.

Following a successful exhibition of her world, Lala plans to continue following her dark path.  She’s back to her old methods of abuse and torture in order to extract inspiration from her muses and has marked the beginning of 2015 with the banishment of her beloved Drone #1.  Only time will tell what’s to come of Lala and her Drones, Muses and Laboratory…

See news updates on The Lala World here.

Based on a Fact RECAP 2014