Bio:

Pilar Lagos (b.1986, Santiago, Chile) is a Honduran visual artist raised between Honduras and Egypt. Recent group exhibitions include Myths and Legends of the World at Miami International Fine Arts (Miami, FL); Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (Brooklyn, NY); Empathy & Alchemy pop-up show at Living Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), the Atlantic Gallery (New York, NY) and The Hewitt Gallery of Art (New York, NY).

In 2023, Pilar was selected as a mentee at New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. Pilar was an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT (March 2024). Pilar is also a co-founder of Immaterial Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective.

She lives and works in Long Island City, NY.

Artist Statement:

My work explores the lasting impacts of feeling estranged from culture and body. I paint in response to the inner conversations between alienation and longing. I was uprooted from my Latino culture at an early age and grew up in a foreign country, rich with customs and traditions. When I returned to my home country, five years later, I experienced reverse cultural shock and have never truly felt at home anywhere.

This sense of estrangement is a recurring theme in my work. My paintings address a feeling of alienation from a body coping with chronic medical conditions, the impacts, and the trauma. I incorporate expired medications, glass flakes and found materials to evoke the raw emotions of pain. I confront the impersonal elements of the medical industry and the abstract concept of health.

My painting practice also includes another, seemingly unrelated subject: my cat, Cleo. While these paintings seem at first disparate from my work concerning medical trauma, images of Cleo explore the impossibility of the rendered image — a clear connection to the MRI’s and CT scans that I use to portray an impossibly incomplete rendering of human life.

My printmaking practice consists primarily of collagraphs and monotypes. I build collagraph plates from medicine blister packs, string and acrylic mediums. These plates are not built to be archival; instead, these items mimic the wear and tear that our bodies go through as we age. Through printmaking, I explore themes of social masking as a coping mechanism for individuals navigating life while dealing with chronic conditions.

Website: www.pilarlagos.com | @pilarlagos.art

Course: Brand Identity: Creating an Image | DSC-2243-OL

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