Tina Lugo
Inculcated by waves of Saturday morning cartoons, characters portrayed in comic book literature, and videogame culture, Tina Lugo became instantly infatuated with the bright colors of the animated world. As she grew up, the social and sexual undertones of these cartoons unbridled themselves from the confines of her childhood memory. Lugo began to realize that the sexual and often tongue-in- cheek humor she expressed had stemmed from what she had watched on early 90’s television and only fueled her passion to uncover the subversive and controversial qualities in the pop culture of yesteryear. The use of enamel and plexiglass in her work is to suggest that the smooth, hyper-gloss finishing of a world that allures us will always be beneath a transparent barrier we can touch but never enter-a replication of the voyeuristic qualities we all posses.
Lugo lists as her biggest influence, the Ero Guru Nansensu art movement of Japan—a name comprised of fractions of the English words erotic, grotesque, and nonsense. The movement focuses on eroticism, sexual corruption, and decadence, all themes salient in Lugo's work. With the complex compositions of her paintings, often it takes a few moments before the viewer sees the nudity or eroticism in her paintings, something she thinks eases people into the sexual nature of her pieces.
Tina Lugo was born and raised in The Bronx, NY. She studied at the School of Visual Arts where she obtained her BFA and worked with fellow artist, Nicolas Touron. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she continues to make glass paintings in her Pacific Northwest studio.