Non-Native by Jefreid Lotti
September 6 – November 4
About | Events
Non Native a solo show by Jefreid Lotti from jefreid Lotti on Vimeo.
About “Non-Native”
Efichensi: My interest in depicting these particular domestic spaces comes from an unusual encounter I had with a clothing-iron. When I was a teenager I lived in an “efichensi” (a vernacular pronunciation of efficiency), an illegal subdivision of a home into a separate, affordable, living unit. Like many families who recently arrived in Miami from Cuba, my mother and I lived in this overcrowded transitional space until my college years. One morning while ironing my clothes on the bed where I slept, she accidentally placed a hot iron on my leg. I woke up startled and with the desire to scream, but I didn’t. These works come from such a place. The still-lives and interiors are an informal self-portrait depicting a commonly forgotten aspect of an immigrant’s life. This uncomfortable passage that narrates the struggle of immigration, the Efichensi paintings have become an homage to a forgotten space, a catalyst of dreams where all success stories begin.
About the Artist
Jefreid Lotti (b.1989) is a Cuban born artist based in Miami, FL. In the year 2000 he migrated to the United States where he studied painting in Miami-Dade College, Florida International University and the private atelier Romero/Idalgo. During this time, he found the influential mentorships of major cultural figures of the Cuban diaspora. The most notable of which were painters Julio Larraz and Carlos Luna, and the poets and art critics Ricardo Pau-llosa and Joaquin Badajoz. All of whom influenced his craft, methodology and nurtured his artistic evolution. Lotti works in painting and drawing, and the content of his work derives from formal, domestic and identity concerns. Lotti taught painting and drawing for two years at the University of Florida where he received a Master’s in Fine Arts degree from the painting program in the year 2016. He is currently living and working in Miami, FL where he continues to exhibit locally at varying venues.