Loriel Beltrán (b. 1985, Caracas, Venezuela; lives and works in Miami, FL) creates sculptural accumulations of paint and color that defy traditional notions of artistic media. Poetically merging painting and sculpture, the artist states that his works “resist becoming images” and instead materialize color in its full complexity. Situating his work between the legacy of Latin American modernism and postwar painting in the United States, Beltrán dissolves distinctions between image and object, surface and substance, plane and structure. While the artist considers perceptual effects, he remains equally invested in issues of materiality, process, and industry, foregrounding artistic labor and the residue it leaves behind.
Many of Beltrán’s works consider the interplay between particular combinations of colors, often indicated by technical abbreviations in his works’ titles. Beltrán has described the resulting works as “panels of code,” and rather than depicting a single image, they suggest a distinct visual language, replete with numerous possibilities for imagery. The artist’s surfaces are composed of layers of paint that have dried to create vibrating optical effects. To create his works, Beltrán produces custom molds and pours paint into them, allowing the paint to harden and dry over time. The artist sometimes integrates objects into his molds–such as leftover materials or detritus from his studio–to introduce “interruptions” into his compositions. He repeats this process for months or even years, as layers of paint coagulate and accumulate. The artist then removes the mold and slices the resulting object–a hardened block with swirls and layers of color–into strips using a custom-built machine. The strips are arranged into bold, planar compositions, which he adheres to a wooden substrate.
