Where the Souls Meet

Dr. Lakra, born Jerónimo López Ramírez in 1972, draws from an eclectic, freewheeling range of sources, from academic ethnography to archival popular culture, from the canonical to the unorthodox. Expressing ranges and extremes might imply that Dr. Lakra consciously intervenes at points along various spectrums. That is not quite right. His approach is, above all else, intuitive. For Lakra visual culture of all sorts is fair game and he draws on what he chooses without weighing up the consequences. His work is not an exercise in visual critique, rather it is an ongoing experiment in how far your impulses might take you. 

This is a dangerous business. It needs a solid foundation, and in Lakra’s case this comes from his virtuosity. He has a facility that he puts to work across various media, be it tattooing, drawing in ink, print making or, more recently, oil painting. Lakra’s two-dimensional pieces deliver the satisfaction of a mark well made. This is particularly evident in his recent monoprints for Nigerian author Amos Tutuola’s dreamlike 1954 novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Created at break-neck speed, these large prints (88 x 70 cm) show tumbles of figures and faces, of people and animals, of spirits and monsters that are an extraordinarily skilful representation of the mood of this bizarre and brilliant book. I first saw them with the novel fresh in my mind, and the shift from my own mental image to Lakra’s rendition felt like an enjoyable thunk at the back of my brain.