Barrio Escalante, San José

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Vuelo Número 12, by Armando Lara. A mass of winged bodies defies physics without fully relinquishing its earthly weight.

Armando Lara

Vuelo Número 12Inquire about availability

Technique
Acrylic/Canvas
Dimensions
151 × 175 cm
Status
Inquire about availability
Palette
warm ochre, sand, lead gray, burnt sienna, plum purple
Brushwork
Classical anatomical modeling combined with glazes, splatters, sgraffito, and the insertion of flat graphic motifs.

Curatorial analysis

A mass of winged bodies defies physics without fully relinquishing its earthly weight. Rather than a triumphant, ethereal ascension, Armando Lara presents a swarm of naked figures caught between the urge to rise and an unavoidable gravitational pull. The anatomies, rendered with a sculptural precision that recalls the classical canon, fold into near-fetal positions, intertwine, or launch forward in tense foreshortenings where the feathers of the wings take on a mineral, tactile, and heavy density.

The background does not offer a peaceful sky, but rather an atmosphere stratified in ocher, golden hues, and coppery shadows that evoke weathered walls or fragmented cartographic terrains. Across this surface, shadowy projections of clenched hands and minuscule falling silhouettes filter through, while the lower edges reveal traveling suitcases and a circular tondo encasing a cluster of huddled birds. This contrast between earthly baggage and mythical flight introduces an immediate friction: these celestial beings bear the conditions of exodus, uprooting, or collective migration.

The pictorial matter reinforces this duality through an execution that alternates the luminous softness of skin tones with contemporary graphic accidents. Deliberate drips, incisions scratching into the canvas, and collaged textile weaves tear through the academic illusion, serving as a reminder that the scene unfolds across a pictorial ground marked by time and memory.

Free from mystical calm, the flight takes on the dramatic urgency of an existential evacuation. The tensed backs, the concealed faces that deny individual identity, and the shared gravitational burden turn these creatures into witnesses of an uncertain transit, where the gift of wings is not enough to escape the human load or its contingencies.

Vuelo Número 12

More works by Armando Lara

8 works

Available works

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