In keeping with his interest in philosophical ruminations about life, interpersonal relationships, the environment, and the conventions of painting itself, Open Rooms serves as a visual summary of recurrent themes in Lajarin-Encina’s practice of recent years. His familiar yet enigmatic scenes and figures inspire curiosity, delight, and a hint of estrangement. 

 

Familiar scenes and cityscapes largely focused on domestic spaces, including living and dining rooms and other built environments, capture an awkward enormity, a sense of alienation in his calm, nighttime scenes. In The Pets, a full moon peers in through a high-set window, casting its cool gaze onto a room of outsized furniture and tiny pets including a cat, dog, and parrot. The super flat quality of the perspective, the absurdity of the openness and size of the room and its occupants, and the vacant feeling it inspires are all carefully crafted elements of Lajarin-Encina’s commentary on the failures of our collective ego and the philosophical architecture that frames it.

 

Lajarin-Encina’s precise linework and cartoonish style work in tandem with his deep inquiries into humanity’s purpose, progress, and folly to capture a satirical wit. Open Rooms invites viewers to step through the threshold into the conditions Modernism has designed—into the corners of our minds we wish so badly to tame—and to pause.