
Gerald Lovell, 2022
Photo by Jacob Consenstein
For Gerald Lovell (b. 1992), painting is an act of biography. Combining flat and impressionistic painting with thick daubs of impasto, Lovell’s monumental portraits depict loving scenes often lost to the abyss of memory. Lovell’s portraits refuse the notion that all Black figures put down on canvas are somehow political. Rather, his work records a deep commitment to fostering alternative community narratives by imbuing his subjects with social agency and self-determinative power, while also revealing individualistic details that lay their essential humanity bare. Born in Chicago to Puerto Rican and Black parents, Lovell began painting at the age of 22 after dropping out of the graphic design program at the University of West Georgia. He has exhibited at P·P·O·W, New York; Jeffrey Deitch, Moore Building, Miami, FL; Anthony Gallery, Chicago, IL; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, NC; MINT, Atlanta, GA; and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland, among others. In 2022, Lovell’s work was on view in What is Left Unspoken, Love at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, and is in the museum’s permanent collection. Lovell completed the Fountainhead Artists Residency in October 2023, and his second exhibition with P·P·O·W, In Search Of, will open in February 2024.
Gerald Lovell
b. 1992, Chicago, IL
Lives and works in Atlanta, GA
Solo Exhibitions
2024
In Search Of, P·P·O·W, New York, NY (forthcoming)
2022
In the Eye of the Beholder, Anthony Gallery, Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, IL
2021
all that I have, P·P·O·W, New York, NY
2019
Sylvia, Sylvia, The Gallery | Wish, Atlanta, GA
Select Group Exhibitions
2022
What Is Left Unspoken, Love, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Everything I do has an underlying political question, Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland
2021
Something About Us, Anthony Gallery, Chicago, IL
Jurell Cayetano, Gerald Lovell, and Dianna Settles, MINT, Atlanta, GA
Shattered Glass, curated by Melahn Frierson and AJ Girard, Moore Building, Miami, FL
2020
Myselves, Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Painting Is Its Own Country, The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, NC
2019
Do You Love Me?, P·P·O·W, New York, NY
The Dorsey’s Black Art in American collection, Houston Museum of African American Culture, Houston, TX
2018
Black Art in America, Philadelphia fine art show, Philadelphia, PA
TRPL-DBL; Jurell Cayetano, FRKO, and Gerald Lovell, The Gallery | Wish, Atlanta, GA
2017
NewFangled, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles CA
Yearbook, Mur Mur Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Collapse, Mason Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Out of Context, Notch8 Gallery, Atlanta GA
Bright House inaugural exhibition through MINT, Bright House Offices, Atlanta, GA
2016
A Show of Portraits: Gerald Lovell and Jurell Cayetano, MurMur Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Select Bibliography
2022
What Is Left Unspoken, Love, DelMonico Books, New York, NY, 2022, pp. 80–81.
Public Collections
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, West Palm, FL
Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, Belgium
The Wedge Collection, Toronto, Canada
Gerald Lovell
Chameleon, 2021
oil on panel
60 x 60 ins.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Michel'le at Wayla, 2022
oil on panel
72 x 60 ins.
182.9 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Sun Yat-Sen Garden, Vancouver, 2022
oil on panel
60 x 48 ins.
152.4 x 121.9 cm
Gerald Lovell
Rochelle, 2020
oil on panel
60 x 60 ins.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Troy and Taylor at jajaja, 2021
oil on panel
60 x 72 ins.
152.4 x 182.9 cm
Gerald Lovell
Searcy, 2020
oil on panel
72 x 60 ins.
182.9 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Chameleon, 2021
oil on panel
60 x 60 ins.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Michel'le at Wayla, 2022
oil on panel
72 x 60 ins.
182.9 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Sun Yat-Sen Garden, Vancouver, 2022
oil on panel
60 x 48 ins.
152.4 x 121.9 cm
Gerald Lovell
Rochelle, 2020
oil on panel
60 x 60 ins.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
Gerald Lovell
Troy and Taylor at jajaja, 2021
oil on panel
60 x 72 ins.
152.4 x 182.9 cm
Gerald Lovell
Searcy, 2020
oil on panel
72 x 60 ins.
182.9 x 152.4 cm
One couple is helping Atlanta’s High Museum of Art to fill gaps and correct biases in its collection.
Curator Michael Rooks advocates for love not war in new exhibition.
Gerald Lovell’s portraits are layered: his subjects’ faces are encrusted with thick globs of paint, which sharply contrast with the rest of his works’ flatly rendered surroundings. These emphatically painted pieces make seemingly mundane scenes - like a man eating at a diner or a woman sitting in a chair - feel special, like they’re worth looking at twice.
A new Mint Gallery exhibition illustrates this artist’s unique skill in rendering the human figure.
The Atlanta-based artist Gerald Lovell began painting at the age of 22 after discovering that a formal arts degree in graphic design wasn't for him. Several years later, after some encouragement from friends in the city's budding arts scene and a little help from YouTube, Lovell recently opened his first solo show in New York City.