The Brooklyn Rail

Since the Renaissance, the tradition of painters rendering their studio interiors has shaped the history of art. These works have consistently served not only to document the physical spaces—revealing working conditions, materials, and processes—but also to symbolically represent the artist’s identity, lifestyle, and creative spirit, offering profound commentaries on the very nature of art-making. In Lorenzo Amos’s solo show, No Regrets Because You’re My Sunshine, at Gratin Gallery, the artist’s studio transcends theme, concept, or setting, becoming a portal into the intimate rhythms of the creative process. Viewers are invited to experience the elevation of Amos’s domestic banality into the public realm of the art gallery. 

The exhibition’s repetitive motif of the studio interior makes Amos’s near-obsessive interest immediately evident. The glancingly recursive paintings share an earthy palette, constrained spaces, flattened perspectives, and loose yet confident brushstrokes. However, on closer inspection, a narrative emerges—a story about time’s passage in the studio, the evolution of each canvas, and the sequence of their creation. This shifting narrative unfolds on the studio wall that Amos depicts in each work, serving as a palette that bears traces of brush cleanings, paint roller marks, color tests, and even the negative space left by the canvases that once covered its surface. From one painting to the next, these marks allow the viewer to trace the artist’s process and preparation for each successive work. However, the studio extends beyond the paintings themselves: marks on the Gratin Gallery floor bear evidence of the artist producing the largest canvases on-site. A stack of reference books fills a vitrine, transforming the exhibition space into an active extension of Amos’s studio.

The figures portrayed in each painting deepen the sense of repetition, revealing the studio as a hub for community and creative exchange. While each subject is unique, all are fellow artists, unified by a cohesive tonal atmosphere. Skin is rendered with thin, pale, almost translucent strokes, lending them an ethereal, apparitional quality. The near-life-sized scale and the planar perspective pushes the figures to the canvas edges, flattening their forms intensifies this effect. Their gazes never meet the viewer directly; instead, they look beyond, evoking a sense of quiet transcendence. These choices transform the portraits into liminal spaces, inviting the viewer to step closer, as if through a portal, into the artist’s realm. Amos weaves a spiritual quality into many of the paintings in this exhibition, informed by his Catholic upbringing. The influence of religious art is also evident in details like lapis lazuli marks and the subtle use of mise en abyme. Yet Amos reinterprets these classical motifs within a contemporary context: where lapis lazuli traditionally adorns the robes of the Virgin Mary, here it manifests as bold, expressive paint slashes. Meanwhile, the mise en abyme technique becomes visible through the meticulous rendering of tattoos on the figures and transcribed poems on the walls. As a self-taught artist, Amos draws from many influences—from Titian to Lucian Freud, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gordon Matta-Clark, Martin Wong, and Alice Neel—each varying in subtlety and intensity. This vast range showcases his independent learning and transcends mere appropriation, merging these references into his distinct style. 

Although the exhibition focuses on portraiture, two works, Bedroom Dresser (A) and Wall Slice 1 (the beginning) (both 2024), stand out as apparent outliers due to their abstract quality. However, closer inspection of nearby paintings reveals that these works depict specific sections of the studio’s wall. In this sense, they too are portraits—but portraits of paint itself. Paradoxically, they embody extreme realism, for what could be more accurate to depict in paint than the medium itself? Similarly, in 4 landscapes (2024), harmonious representations of nature and flowers are layered over the chaotic studio backdrop, evoking a collage-like effect. However, these scenes are simply photographs pinned to the studio wall. The juxtaposition between the cluttered interior and the peaceful outdoor images challenges traditional notions of landscape painting, suggesting how landscapes can evolve within contrasting environments by exploring the studio as a realm where creativity stretches beyond its physical boundaries, inviting new interpretations of nature itself.

Gallery exhibitions often strip artworks of their connection to the creative process, isolating them within sterile environments that feel removed from the reality behind their creation. Amos’s exhibition offers a refreshing alternative, blurring the line between the commercial gallery space and the intimate, private domain of creativity. The result is a body of work presented with an accessible, decentralized, and genuine perspective that invites viewers to a more authentic engagement with art.