Recently launching a series of limited edition prints through our online gallery, lenticular artist Luz Perez-Ojeda brings an exciting dynamic between photography, printmaking, painting and digital art forms to the lenticular art form, and spoke to us recently about her use of the medium.
Tell us a little about your process, and what you hope people will draw from your images?
When I start working, I have a general idea of what I want to create, but my way of working is very spontaneous and intuitive; it is like an automatic drawing, produced from a subconscious, and/or external, and/or spiritual source, without conscious awareness of the content.
After finishing its creation, I start analysing the symbols and content of my artwork. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences, they carry ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs.
The interest about lenticular artworks is that through their kinetic effect, they offer the observer the possibility to interact with the piece; as it amplifies the image narrative it allows the viewer to more interpretation.
Were you inspired by other artists or movements as you developed your own work?
Having worked for years in the realm of photography and silk screen printing, Andy Warhol, as a leading figure in the visual art movement, was a great influence to me. His worked marked a shift in how art was perceived. One of the more noteworthy and impressive aspects of his artworks was his use of the silkscreen printmaking process; his approach, clearly influenced by his background in commercial and advertising art and design, was fascinating in my early years as an artist.
Another artist’s approach to media photography and video also got my attention, his name was William Klein. My interest in his extensive use of the wide-angle lenses and motion blur clearly showed why he was considered the “father of street photography”.
My current works of art are clearly influenced by Pop Art, as well as Kinetic and Op Art artists, some of whom I have known on a personal level since childhood. I have been fortunate in having exposure to different forms of artistic expression; from the human form to that of urban landscapes.
The discovery and use of the lenticular printing technique were very important for me. Once again in my artistic work I have incorporated a printing technique, after the serigraphy, and the flatbed on various materials, now it’s the lenticular printing.
When did you first come across lenticular print, and was it something you thought about working with immediately?
The first time I had the chance to see an exhibition exhibiting a lenticular artist was in Paris at the Art Paris Art Fair in 2011. I was literally overwhelmed by the effects produced by this medium and by the artwork itself. It represented everything that I wanted to express as an artist and above all allowed me a “hybridization” of all the artistic experiments I had used in the past.
Working as a lenticular artist allows you to visually develop the space concept, through the depth effect and image volumetry. It offers the possibility to represent the movement time from incorporating animated sequences visually like a .gif, or cinema, or animation. It amplifies the possibility of the image narrative; a before and after, a mini story, etc. It invites the participation of the observer from his interaction with the piece; the observer moves from side to side to observe it, and it allows you to generate finished works, or makes it possible to intervene the material; to cut it, to assemble and build new pieces adding other materials.
The learning curve was rather rough for me, because I wanted from the beginning to make all the preparation of the work for printing myself, and especially to learn to design the work so that it adapts to the reading of the lenticular artwork and its 3D, flip or animation effects.
It seems to be a significant time for the intersection of art and technology; digital painting, NFTs, AI created art, and even the work of a lenticular artist; how do you see this change, and is there a chance we’re losing something of the beauty of analogue artworks?
I’m pretty fascinated by all this new technologies, I want to continue to experiment with laser cutting techniques, and video mapping is also incredibly powerful for visual art; I would love to experiment one day.
I don’t think that this could be harmful to analogue creation and art, I would even say that the mixture of the two, the old world and the new, is exciting and gives rise to very interesting creations. I grew up in the analogue world and I made the smooth transition between the two and this is precisely the particularity that I want to keep
in my work. Painting and digital printing side by side. Lenticular with silkscreen printing together, why not?!
