Lt. Blue/Gray

Yosiell Lorenzo’s work fits into that saying: “never judge a book by its cover”. At first glance, his artwork is all cuteness: cupcakes, cherries and candy. But beneath the facade of frosting and the rainbow sprinkles camouflage, a sadness is stirring. Yosiell uses sweetness to reel us in. Once he has us in his saccharine net, we settle and see beyond the surface: these are cheerless creatures. They are all searching for love. The Sicklings are a troop of Yosiell’s recurring characters who are particularly mopey and needy. Rendered in sexless simplicity, the Sicklings function like anthropomorphic feelings: Frustration, loneliness, despair…Often the Sicklings wear masks. Yosiell uses masks as a device throughout his paintings and three dimensional work. The masks represent dual and hidden identities, as well as society’s attempts to label individuals who resist categorization. Yosiell has dealt with these identity issues first hand. As a gay, Puerto Rican artist, he was often told that he didn’t “look gay” or he was a “fake Rican”. Yosiell was introduced to art in his youth during a time when hip hop and graffiti defined urban culture. Growing up in Bridgeport, CT, he’d hop the train to New York and absorb it all. In The Wounded Sicklings are stirring. The thought of travel awakens a curiosity from deep within, but it also makes them nervous. These Sicklings are wounded. They wear sashes made of gauze like involuntary contestants in a morbid pageant, and the light hurts their sensitive eyes. With poor vision obscured by bandages, they clutch their elixir bottles for life. Yosiell Lorenzo returns with his most recent batch of Sicklings. The Wounded Sicklings are hand-cast and painted by Yosiell in an edition of 10 pieces. Each resin figure is 4.5 inches tall and has had its “wounds” delicately wrapped with gauze.