Lola Gil Distorts Memories With Her Glass Managerie
The glass figurines in Lola Gil’s latest work are essentially still lifes. She owns each one, treasures each one. Holds and manipulates them to understand their qualities, their quirks. She depicts everything about them except her own fingerprints on their surface. All are vintage and handblown, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. “My grandparents had tons of them,” she says, “and so many people I talk to say they remember having them in their homes. Or their grandparents had them, displayed in backlit cabinets.”
Gil’s grandparents collected these from tourist destinations like Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. Kitschy places. Flea markets. Something you buy and forget why you bought it. Something that has rooted so deeply in our unconscious that we wonder if it were dreamed into reality. These figurines are like one of the taken-for-granted items that are just a little too precious to throw out, but you still might one day. Only if there is something else to take its place. But there never is. So you just keep adding.
The glass figurines in her paintings today are from her own collection. Some were inherited from her grandparents and others are found at online auctions. They might be of a particular type of glass figurine or brand. Who’s to say? They are rather anonymous despite mostly sharing a similar look. Languid bodies, bulging black on white eyes.
No matter their history, Gil transforms the figures.
But the reflections of what lies behind them are what draw us in. Within the glass figurine we see the melding, twirling distortion of families and individuals. Tender portraits. People who’ve chosen to capture their best selves. Gil photographs the glassworks from every angle. She studies the way each uniquely distorts light and image so that she can create the most accurate depiction of their kaleidoscopic splendor.
The folks behind the figurine, however, are totally anonymous. Gil uses stock photos to make these people anyone.
“The figures in the background need to be anyone,” she says. “Someone you would pass and not likely really see. They are strangers. I feel profoundly moved and concerned by our current state of humanity. I want to bring attention to human beings—good and bad and in between—and cast a light on the need for empathy and respect.”
And just as the glass figurines are all alike, the stock photos she uses, and the way she renders them, all have a similar vibe. Midcentury. Nostalgic. With all the media and totems that exist from this era, it is easy to forget that we are further removed from the year 1961 than people alive at that time were from the 1800s. There is that joke that gets traded around online every now and then about how a Happy Days produced today would be about America under George W. Bush.
Which is all to say, what do we have to reminisce about? Our plans from before the pandemic? A world that felt more stable? Half of our own society is violently obsessed with returning to a 1950s America that never existed and the other half cannot agree on how to move society forward. Should we be a people that tries to improve on our imperfect values, or is it time that we redefine ourselves, by our own standards?
ABOVE: Lola Gil, studio photo by Paul Gannon
MY GRANDPARENTS HAD TONS OF THEM… AND SO MANY PEOPLE I TALK TO SAY THEY REMEMBER HAVING THEM IN THEIR HOMES, OR THEIR GRANDPARENTS HAD THEM, DISPLAYED IN BACKLIT CABINETS.”
The world that Gil creates in each painting looks for solace. The reminiscing is about what makes us smile, what nourishes our hope. In this way, the glass figurine becomes a screen which protects the characters. It blocks the things of our world from seeping in, from contaminating this perfect moment. The family photo at Thanksgiving, the school photo when your hair falls just right. All that stuff which exists outside of those moments is blocked. The glass dragon will not allow it to enter. The things we bring with us which terrorize and haunt our world would look just as twisted and unrecognizable to Gil’s characters as they do to us. We could be as happy as they are if we could be like they are.
Gil admits, “I am definitely playing around with nostalgia, and for me specifically, that awakens memories of being in my grandparents’ home, who were collectors of mid-century-era toys and other gems. It is the place where my
imagination began, and I am attached to that experience for my escape. They had so much stuff spanning decades. Furniture, so many toys, trinkets, books. I would hope to give a non-obvious nod to some type of past time in our recent history, but I like to give that hint of surrealness. Slightly off or unsettling to reality. Even a parallel reality. Somewhere you might escape to. That feels comforting, yet strangely exciting and new. Old New.”
Gil relies on her intuition for pairing the glass figures with the stock image portraits. For the stock images, one of her criteria is eye contact. The subject of the photo must be looking directly into the camera to make a connection with the viewer possible.
From there, pairing figurine with image is all about finding the right match. Darker glass means that the figure needs prominent features and big makeup to be seen, to not be washed out. It is important for Gil to stay true to the existing nature of each component.
A third, more ephemeral element comes into play. How do the figurines and stock images interact? There needs to be some kind of chemistry, a spark that makes their combination mean something greater.
“I allow myself to be fragile and chase my own need to be open, forgive past relationships, and see myself through a transparent lens. In my current show, the human subjects went a little deeper and found their glass pairings closer to something of a spirit animal. The subject who was enlightened was along the lines of the racehorse or elephant. And the subject who was not (but whom I also wanted to acknowledge) was paired with a donkey or a baboon in order to lead the viewer closer to that subject’s humanity on display. I think it is a pretty natural and seamless process most of the time,” Gil says.
The result is part of Gil’s long running project she calls “narrative escapism.” This is the term Gil has developed over the years to describe the majority of her artmaking.
For Gil, narrative escapism seems to broadly refer to the stories and images we can connect with in a way that uplifts and transforms our lived reality. It describes the alchemical process by which art makes the world seem a little bigger, and more special.
ART HAS A JOB TO DO. FOR ME AS THE ARTIST, FIRST AND FOREMOST IT HAS TO PROVOKE AND AWAKEN ME, BUT THEN WHEN IT LEAVES THE STUDIO IT HAS TO TAKE PEOPLE SOMEWHERE TOO.”
I AM DEFINITELY PLAYING AROUND WITH NOSTALGIA… IT IS THE PLACE WHERE MY IMAGINATION BEGAN, AND I AM ATTACHED TO THAT EXPERIENCE FOR MY ESCAPE.”
Especially in her early career, Gil was struck by the art world describing her as a type of surrealist. Pop or lowbrow did not matter. It rang untrue. It seemed like the world was hellbent on describing her work as some kind of sur-reality.
But part of what has made Gil’s work so successful over the years is her ability to pour her own story into a painting. Using the term narrative escapism is her way to signal that these works tap into vulnerability rather than experiences shared among or rooted in the subconscious. She is not trying to describe anything other than herself. Her work homes in on personal feelings, attachments, paranoias. And while they are not quite autobiographical, in the sense that we get a feel for Lola’s real or imagined world, her work does depict the realities she goes to in order to make sense of her own reality. The good moments, the less good moments, the misunderstood moments. They do not dive into an unconsciousness so much as they step to the side and take a different view.
She says, “Personally art is just therapy for me. When it goes out into the world, when it leaves me and becomes the world’s art, it becomes this other thing. Back in the mid 2000s when I first started making a living as an artist, I was pigeonholed into this surrealist category. But I did not feel it encompassed what I was creating. I was working to escape my own reality, through narratives that left me personally feeling positive regarding the issues I was painting about. The more and more I was told my work was surrealist, the more I wanted to find a place it did make sense. Art has a job to do. For me as the artist, first and foremost it has to provoke and awaken me, but then when it leaves the studio it has to take people somewhere too. It has to open a door, and it has to stimulate thought, hopefully even after you walk away from the canvas.”
Gil’s work inspires a journey toward the question: What will make you happier? The question is genuine. Face value. Take it or leave it, but it is the kind of questions you will ultimately return to over and again, no matter how hard you try to outrun it, try to convince yourself that you are beyond that question or unworthy of receiving an affirmative answer.
I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE FRAGILE AND CHASE MY OWN NEED TO BE OPEN, FORGIVE PAST RELATIONSHIPS, AND SEE MYSELF THROUGH A TRANSPARENT LENS.”
For herself, the answer is empathy. Graceful, clean empathy. She describes the glass figurines as a magnifying glass. They are also the bardo, a liminal space. The place we go to between existences. Are we better or worse off after the journey?
The glass twists and distorts and we can dwell there confused and alone, or we can realize that it depicts a person with very real hopes and goals. Her latest paintings depict these figures just out of focus, and what if we could just shift our gaze? Just a little, to see the person on the other side of the figures.
“What I am hopeful for is that it gives the antagonist behind the rendered glass depth of a being who has lived a life—just as you or I—as different as it may be. Once we start to see one another as a human being with feelings and experiences—equal, lesser, worse—we can begin to channel compassion which leads to respect, care, and proactively helping ensure our children and future generations have a beautiful earth to live on. I remain hopeful, for the sake of our species,” Gil says.*
This article originally appeared as the cover feature in Hi-Fructose Issue 69. Get a copy of the issue in print here. Thanks for reading and supporting our independent arts publication.
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