Lala Drona (b. 1988) is a Venezuelan-American painter and video artist, born in Denver, Colorado. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado, Lala Drona has since published and exhibited her work internationally.  Most recently, her videos and paintings exploring digital spaces and the female gaze, were shown at the Cite des Arts de Paris.  Her paintings, videos, and writing explore the monstrous feminine, alternate realities, and void of the digital world.  The totality of her artwork contributes to, and exists within a fictional universe and mythology established online and then recontextualized in the physical world through paint on canvas, performance, and sculpture. Her paintings and videos create an intimate and uncanny sense of unease, adding depth to her oeuvre and compelling viewers to consider the impact of institutional structures on individual identity. Lala Drona’s body of work engages with broader social and cultural issues.  She is based in Paris, France.

Artist Statement:

​​Lala Drona plays with the idea of the mirror and reflectivity, alternate realities, the transitions through these realities and how they manifest in our daily lives. Refusing to choose just one medium, she paints, writes, and creates short films, all which take place in her artistic universe. The voyage from the virtual to the real, and vice versa, play a significant role within her practice, and she represents these transition with her use of symmetry and grayscale. She re-contextualizes virtual media (stories, digital art, and videos) in reality through paint and canvas, tying everything together to create a cohesive and complex narrative.


Artist's CV

Nov 2021    Interview, "Finding your inner femininity, channeling
                  difference into empowerment with artist Lala Drona" on
                  Finding Your Wave Podcast


Mar 2021     Interview with Paris Lit up, "Spotlight" series


May 2020     Interview with Only Woke, "At Home" series


Oct 2019      Report covering The Female Gaze at the Bienvenu Art Fair,                        at the Cité des Arts Paris, by Mathieu Mielesko Balul


Oct 2019      Featured in article on The Gaze of a Parisienne

                   "The Gaze of a Woman Artist" by Florence Briat-soulié  


Aug  2019     The Art Gorgeous Article 
                   "Three Fresh Takes on the Female Gaze" by Katya Lopatko

Feb 2019      Konstepidemin, Announcement of exhibition
                    "The Box"


July 2018     El Correo de Andalucia, Article on exhibition:                                           The Power of the Click

July 2018     ABCdesevilla, Article on exhibition :  
                   The Power of the Click


July 2022              Collective exhibition, "Video + Performance," Millennium Film Workshop Inc., Brooklyn New York


May 2022              Collective exhibition, "Inauguration," Espace Artistes Femmes, Lausanne Switzerland


March 2022           Collective exhibition, "Entre exode, ouverture et création," Powerhouse, Lausanne Switzerland  


May 2021              Guest Panelist, "Viral/Sustainable: digital and environmental art today," Edinburg College of Art       


July  2020             Collective exhibition: First Responders, WOW Museum & Gallery, Texas USA


June 2020             Collective exhibition: Covideo-19 Notes, Undercurrent Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (online)


October 2019        Bienvenue Art Fair, Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre, La Cité des Arts, Paris France


February 2019       Solo Exhibition: The Box, Konstepidemin, Gothenburg Sweden


May 2019               Live Art Performance: Experiment 88- Speak or Listen, Le Castel, Paris France


Aug/Sept 2018       Collective Exhibition: Lettres, Mots et Clics..., Galerie Art'et Miss, Paris France


July 2018               Solo Exhibition: The Power of the Click, Cultural Center Castilblanco, Seville Spain 


May 2017               Public Radio Interview: 93.3 Beijing International Radio, Beijing China 


October 2016         Collective Exhibition: Narcisse Obligé, Savonette Electrique, Montrueil France


October 2015         Collective exhibition:  Je Suis..., La Maison des Ensembles, Paris France


December 2014      Solo exhibition: From the Bed to the Lab, Duo Gallery (currently T2 Gallery), Paris France


May 2013               Solo Exhibition: Paris 210 days, The Botek, Paris France 

PRESS

linktr.ee
linktr.ee

 (b. 1988, USA)

Her passion for storytelling through art started at a very young age, and she believes that she did not learn to make art, but rather lives it. Lala Drona’s work draws from cultural inconsistencies of growing up as a Venezuelan-American woman with a reconstructed left breast due to medical issues at age 15.  Due to having a body which does not fit into commonly agreed upon western expectations of "woman," and having to augment that body at an early age in order to fit societal definitions, Lala Drona constantly redefines categories of identity within her work.

Lala Drona held her first solo exhibition “From the Bed to the Lab,” in Paris in December 2014, at Gallery Düo in Paris, France.  The following year, she exhibited a triptych of paintings: “Je suis la fin qui justifie les moyens (I am the end that justifies the means)” at the collective exhibition Je suis…, an exhibition in response to the January 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.  The triptych recounts a journey of self-rejection and self-acceptance, and marks the beginning of Lala Drona’s use of gray. 

In 2016, she exhibited at the collective exhibition “Narcisse Obligé” in Paris, where she showed a painting/mirror installation titled “Every Woman.”  This piece, along with her triptych “The Power of the Click” was subsequently shown at and exhibition at Galerie Art et Miss in Paris, in 2018.

Since, Lala Drona has travelled from the Eastern Asia, to Western Europe researching topics regarding transitions from the virtual to the real in various artist residency programs.

Artist Statement:
Lala Drona plays with the idea of the mirror and reflectivity, alternate realities, the transitions through these realities and how they manifest in our daily lives. "[The Internet] serves as a a mirror that reflects humanity in its entirety.  However, like in a concave mirror; the image is magnified and  hyperbolized.  This makes certain aspects of our society more apparent, and with the storage of data, it also makes them quantifiable.  The beauty and terror that we find online, are the beauties and terrors we find within ourselves.”

Refusing to choose just one medium, she paints, writes, and creates short films, all which take place in her artistic universe. The voyage from the synthetic to the real, and vice versa, play a significant role within her practice, and she represents these transition with her use of symmetry and grayscale. She re-contextualizes virtual media (stories, digital art, and videos) in reality through paint and canvas, tying everything together to create a cohesive and complex narrative.

EXHIBITIONS 



Lala Drona (b. 1988) is a Venezuelan-American painter and videaste, born in Denver, Colorado. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado, Lala Drona has since published and exhibited her work internationally.  Most recently, her videos and paintings exploring digital spaces and the female gaze, were shown at the Cite des Arts de Paris.  Her paintings, videos, and writing explore “transitions between the virtual and the real” and “women in the digital world.”  The totality of her artwork contributes to, and exists within a fictional universe and mythology established online and then recontextualized in the physical world through paint on canvas, performance, and sculpture. She is based in Paris, France.

As a multi-media artist, Lala has created The Lala World, a dystopian universe with Artists, Muses, and Drones where inspiration is currency.  Lala Drona first established the world on her blog www.basedonafact.com where she writes articles which are based on her life and hyperbolized in order to fit into her world.


EDUCATION / RESEARCH

            contact @dronalala

PUBLICATIONS

PUBLICATIONS / PRESS

Jan 2023 - Jan 2024                 Soho House International Artist Fellowship Recipient

                              

June-July 2019                        Artist in Residence, Kintai Arts, Kintai Lithuania


Jan-Feb 2019                           Artist in Residence, Konstepidemin, Gothenburg Sweeden


Nov-Dec 2018                           Artist in Residence, Buinho Association, Alentejo Portugal


Aug-Oct 2018                           Artist in Residence, Huekito AIR Program, Paris France


June/July 2018                        Artist in Residence, AiRGentum, Seville Spain


Oct 2016 - March 2017             Artist in Residence, Le Lavoir, Ivry Sur Seine France


June / July 2015                      EICAR Summer Workshop:  Directing and Screenwriting program, Paris France


Sept 2012 - May 2013               Université de Paris - Sorbonne: French Language and Civilisation, Paris France


Sept 2006 - May 2012               Bachelor of Arts University of Colorado at Boulder (Colorado, USA)  

                                                  American Association of University Women Scholarship recipient           

March 2022      Dream House: A Collaborative Zine in Honor of the 50th
                       Anniversary of Womanhouse


April 2020        Unleashtheartist, Covod-19 Artist Platform Selection

                       Paintings, videos


Oct 2019           Post(blank),Vol. IV: Post(stranger)

                        Paintings


June 2019         Marietta Magazine Issue 2:
                        Interview by Erica Schreiner and images of paintings


May 2019          Maintenant 13: Dada Journal
                        Painting: Triptych "The power of the click"


April 2019         The Poetry Society of New York: Spilt Milk
                        Article on triptych "The Power of the Click"


Oct 2018          Wotisart Magazine, Issue 19

                         Painting: Triptych "The Power of the Click"


2017                   Verses of April, Lala & Giono

                          Videos: La Politesse, The Physical

  

2012                   Fiction Brigade: A collection of Flash Fiction

                          Painting : I'm not your Reality


2010                   Sub-scribe Magazine, Nostalgia (Fall 2010)

                          Drawing: Outlander