Lorena Morales: Prismatic Future [Review]

By Cecilia Garrec www.ceciliagarrec.art  Review: Glimmers of Time. August 2018

How could a futuristic environment of gleaming transparent rods, translucent color, clean lines and chrome represent the deeply intimate concept of home? It seems like the most unlikely juxtaposition but Lorena Morales has balanced smooth modernism with the cherished concept of home and hearth…an almost utopian definition of the past, present, and future. 

Her emphasis is always on color, but in its most translucent, delicate and liquid form. Her technique of applying diaphanous color to a clear curved surface and pairing this with smooth hardware is both innovative and experimental. Spray paint, acrylics and pens are paired with polycarbonate and casted metal. This affords Morales the high degree of flexibility that contributes to her installation of complex geometric shapes. 

A deep look into the rods will reveal the deeply personal past of a time gone by, where we lived in community with one another, in neighborhoods of closeness. This is a time when your house was your home and your neighbors were connection. A step back from the art diminishes this vestige of the past and you see the glowing light of the future, a liquescent color where possibilities are endless, and reality is transient depending upon your perspective. 

This art allows you the rare opportunity to choose your perspective. Walking around, peering into and gazing directly into these shafts of recorded time allows you to understand Morales’ goal of exposing the movement of time simultaneously by merging past, present and future. You realize that the common bonds we share with others are our very humanity and our trust in an expansive and almost prismatic future.  Morales’ art invites the patron to revisit the ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress.