Logos Gone Wild

Artist Lori LaMont has one very stylish, and socially conscious view. Based in Long Beach, California, LaMont is getting some serious social media attention from the biggest fashion brands in the world for using their logos in her work.  Proenza Schouler and Bella Freud have given Instagram love to LaMont for their logos in her paintings. LaMont’s twenty foot painting titled Camp Life in the Woods and Tricks of Trapping, is even dedicated to designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua.  Dell’Acqua shared details of the painting on his Instagram. So what’s behind all this logo mania gone wild?

I love fashion! I think it’s something universal that we all share in our everyday lives, I paint for myself first, what excites me, inspires me, makes me narrate outlandish stories but fashion houses feel like royal families to me. I love the idea of all that creative energy and productivity manifesting itself into the perfect spectator sport!

“I see beauty in everything”, LaMont tells GLAM4GOOD.  “I’m an insufferable optimist. My mission through my work is to share beauty that touches our spirit.” LaMont’s current exhibition of watercolor on paper, titled Under The Influence, pushes the viewer to look behind the illusions of glamour and celebrity. LaMont told GLAM4GOOD her work makes people “contemplate their insatiable appetite for sport and fashion surrounded by an environment of corporate branding.”  “It’s a timeless theme of competition and camaraderie, set against the glorious human pageant” she says.  LaMont’s paintings are large in scale and can take up to three months to complete.  We asked LaMont how social media has empowered her work. “Social media is ideal because it allows me to reach the broadest audience, Instagram, in particular.  I spend my days painting in solitude and it is an incredible way to interact with the world.”

GLAM4GOOD asked LaMont about her use of the wildlife present in her work. “I love the idea of a modern folktale”, she said.  “A sense of foreboding that has us wonder what the moral of the story is.  Animals stand in as a somewhat objective self….projecting our emotions on to them but it’s like looking in a mirror.  Ultimately, the animals are the idealized “innocent” and the logos represent  corruption.  The question I have attempted to convey is, are they willing participants, or have they been used against their will?  Who’s in charge of our ultimate destiny?”

We at GLAM4Good are big fans of LaMont’s work and we happily found out it’s a mutual admiration society! “GLAM4GOOD is dearest to my heart because it directly touches those in need with beauty from a truly loving hand of compassion.  This is the way I attempt to live, everyday. GLAM4GOOD touches my life by touching others.”  We couldn’t have said it better.

Check out Lori LaMont’s current exhibition at The Long Beach Museum of Art until February 21st, 2016.  LaMont is also Artist-in-Residence there in the Ralston Family Learning Center. Follow her colorful Instagram feed.