Condes has found a signature conceptual fulcrum between the academic and the lighthearted, which can be seen across her oeuvre. In her practice, Condes frequently looks to and references Old Master artists—most apparently their art, but perhaps more importantly their ideas. Drawing from the rich history of figurative sculpture, Condes’s creations are rooted in tradition but decidedly contemporary, resulting in multilayered works that have a depth of meaning that extends past what is seen at first glance. This mode of creating art coalesces fully in works like The Thinker and the series that will be unveiled by Avant Gallery later this month. Though the general composition recalls the work of Rodin, it also offers viewers the opportunity to consider through her interpretation of the work the function of sculptures’ materiality and more abstract notions of time and place in the making of art.

“The Thinker”, a new artwork by Lina Condes, is currently displayed at the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild Summer Exhibition (June 8th – August 8th , 2021). 

What can we learn from looking at Rodin through the lens of contemporary artists, makers and activists? At this very moment we observe a newly inaugurated Tate Modern’s The EY Exhibition: The Making of Rodin in the British capital. An exhibition which synthesizes the artist & conceptual vision. 

While the Tate is questioning this, we already know the answer in San Francisco, where Lina is presenting her artwork for this summer show’s occasion. 

Hear Lina Condes speaking about Rodin, making and working as an artist today:

Condes picked emojis as a subject for her art for the childhood nostalgia they evoke. “Some of the happiest people in the world are children. I’m trying to bring people back to their happy childhood memories and remind them what it means to be unconditionally happy,” Condes explains. “I am using bright colors, the smiley face, bagels, and donuts. I’m making these sculptures as if they are happy humans.” 

Lina Condes is a contemporary American artist with Ukrainian heritage known for her stick figure sculptures. She grew up in a family of professors of physics and math, which is what fuelled her understanding of industrial material for her future sculptures from an early age. Late on, Lina got her MFA in Fine Arts, in Interior and Furniture Design.

The eye as an interface between the external and the internal world. Here it is a unique sensor, able to perceive the world and its contradictions, a disturbing element. The eye as a living organism that embodies and displays - somatising them – the contractions of the existence and acts as a vehicle for impulses and feelings.
An investigating eye that manages to observe and search beyond human limits; a primordial eye, with timeless awareness. An eye that looks and is looked at, that tells something to the spectator and in which the spectator is reflected; an eye that encloses within the depths of its iris the colours and nuances of humanity, of present and past, and guards the future while awaiting it.