Gerald Lovell
Born in 1992 in Chicago, IL, to Puerto Rican and African American parents—Gerald Lovell, uses his artistic practice as a means to self-discovery, and self-articulation. Lovell began his career as an artist after dropping out of the graphic design program at the University of West Georgia as an undergraduate, realizing his need to embrace a new creative path. This epiphany Lovell had in 2014 was his point of departure from a more formal to informal and unorthodox mode of artistic production. He later emerged as a self-taught artist, showing his work on the Atlanta art scene and beyond. Lovell has since developed a unique style and approach to painting, as he poses a dialogue between interspersed impasto and flat surrealist styles on canvas, to create imaginative portraits—using heavy paint application to highlight the human form. His development as a portrait painter has led to works of a very quotidian and common nature—while reifying the lived experiences of his peers.