In his UK debut solo exhibition Fake Abstract, the artist treats his viewers to snippets of a portrait through squiggles across monochrome canvases. The audience is left to wonder if a full Renaissance-like painting actually exists underneath the solid block of colour? Or maybe the artist deliberately painted small portions of a portrait on the small surface? In any case, the eye-catching series lets us indulge in the juxtaposition of contemporary and classic art.

The distinctly bold abstract line disturbs the conventional portrait form, imitating the mark of a digital brush. But doing so, Lago re-claims traditional artistic methods and, in a way, critiques the contemporary art world’s notions of operating outside of any historical context. Instead, he alludes to the history of art. His distinct minimalist use of line and abstract shape succeeds in creating beautifully striking works as well as discussing theoretical concepts of reality.

Lino Lago was born in Spain in 1973 and graduated from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. He has exhibited individually since 1997 in several institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art of A Coruña and the deputation of Ourense, as well as George Adams gallery in New York and Bredgade-Kunsthandel gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has also exhibited collectively at ARCO Madrid, Pulse Art Fair in Miami, and Project Art Fair in Miami.

Lago has received a number of prizes and mentions such as the Vilnius City Arts Award in Lithuania and the Artist Award under 25 years of the Buen Retiro Park in Madrid. His work is also present in public collections, including the Harvard Business School in Boston and the Flint Institute of Arts, USA.