Lotería by Lydia Martin

Many of these oil paintings were recently completed and were included in a solo exhibition, “Lotería II” at the Whistler house Museum of Art, Lowell, MA, in summer 2015. They are part of a long-term art project of 52 art works entitled, “Lotería,” of which 25 paintings have been created. All these art works were inspired by and organized around the traditional images associated with the popular Latin American game of fortune, Lotería: a version of bingo which utilizes pictorial cards instead of letters and numbers. My colleague, a graphic designer had also generated an original hand drawn sequence of corresponding Lotería cards that serve as labels to each of my paintings. Using the game’s stock images as my focus, I work across genres—such as figure painting (“Las Arras,” “La Mano,” La Sirena,” “El Musico,” “El Soldado”), interior (“La Bota,” “El Sol”), exterior/ cityscape/ landscape (“El Borracho,” “El Arbol”) and still life (“La Botella,” “La Estrella,” “La Maceta,” “El Diablito”)—to offer fresh interpretations of the concepts that stand behind the game’s rich folkloric history. In so doing, I aim to reconnect in distinctive ways with these everyday personalities, locales, and objects that quietly lend the game its broad cultural appeal and significance.