The Lasas 1990

Editor: Boris Vallejo’s "The Lasas" from 1990, created with acrylic paint, throws us into a fantasy realm with these powerful women. It feels very much a throwback to pulp magazine covers—striking, theatrical. I'm curious, what leaps out at you when you look at it? Curator: Ah, Vallejo. He crafts a world that's both familiar and wildly his own, doesn't he? Immediately, I see the artist wrestling with—and maybe glorifying—classic heroic ideals. Those sculpted figures, that triumphant stance... But look closer. Do those mountain backdrops seem real, or more like the backdrop of some fevered dream? He’s teasing us with strength, yes, but also inviting us to question the very nature of what we consider "powerful". He layers paint and imagination with almost absurd gusto! Editor: You know, I hadn’t considered the setting as part of the performance of strength. I was so focused on the figures themselves. Curator: Exactly! Consider how that color palette – the dusky purples bleeding into volcanic oranges – amplifies that dreamlike unease. Are these warriors, goddesses, or figments of a collective longing for some forgotten ideal? And why spears? So simple, but the points look menacing in contrast with the poses. What about their metallic costumes and stern faces? All carefully staged to create maximum impact, of course. It asks us where reality ends and the human imagination takes over. Editor: I guess the details really add up to something beyond just surface-level heroism, more than I first realized. The deliberate artifice kind of throws the heroic ideal into question. I’ll definitely look at this piece differently now. Curator: Wonderful! Perhaps it holds up a mirror to our own ideas of strength and challenges us to envision them anew. The fun of art is not merely seeing but feeling how one’s perspectives morph after the observation.