DR LAKRA - Artist

Dr Lakra is a tattoo artist living and working near Mexico City. In his parallel activities here, however, Dr Lakra transfers his draughtsmanship onto the idealised figures in 50’s Mexican magazines. Pin-up girls, wrestlers, beauties and cuties are tattooed and 'enhanced' in ink with bats, demons, spiders and the faces of pouting vixens. Like pertinent graffiti, the relative innocence of another era is politicised and the images are infused with a relish for the diabolical. Beautification or social identification, the works are a carnival of the grotesque. Kitschy erotica, ancient ritual, and hallucinogenic visions are fused in a collage of ideologies.

Dr. Lakra’s work is characterized by irreverent and provocative images that transgress established norms and leave the viewer teetering between attraction and repulsion. His practice includes drawing and mural painting as well as tattoo, collage, and sculpture. His compositions are exquisite corpses of historical references and contemporary images, incorporating quotes from popular culture and intermingling them with diverse religious and social iconographies. The way he juxtaposes and refashions these various elements reveals a profound understanding of art history, as well as a subversive sense of humor. Grotesque physical deformity coexists with sensuality and eroticism in pieces that combine aspects of life, death, and desire.
While Dr. Lakra is best known for his drawings and paintings on appropriated posters, erotic magazines, and postcards, this exhibition focuses in large part on his sculptures. Informed by his interest in tattoo and subsequent studies in anthropology and ethnography, these sculptures display his fascination with the taboos, fetishes, myths and rituals of different cultures.
An avid collector of diverse objects, Lakra views the search for materials and images as an extension of his work. In his case, collecting is also a way of constructing a language from the curiosities that populate his studio – a language made up of books, magazines, plastic dolls, and dried insects. Flea markets and garage sales yield unexpected encounters with many of the artifacts that are currently on display at Kurimanzutto. Sculpted in wax and cast in bronze, these totemic amalgamations of objects and artifacts function as contemporary idols: evidence of a modern mythology transmitted through movies, comics, books, and television.