Lyndon J Barrois, Sr Los Angeles, CA
Artist, Animation Director, Filmmaker
As a member of the AMPAS (Oscars) Visual Effects Branch, Lyndon Barrois’ thirty-plus year career in animation and film is marked by a practice in many corners of the art world. His early stop-motion work won him accolades while still a master's student at the California Institute of the Arts, for his unique and innovative procedure of using chewing gum wrappers as his medium of choice to create his sculptures and “sportraits” of historic athletic figures and events. He continues that technique today, with the added component of shooting and editing his films entirely on iPhones.
A native New Orleanian and graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, Barrois’ career has spanned the globe. In addition to his deep background as an artist, animator, director, educator, and collector, Barrois continues affiliations with many museums and institutions. He serves as a Commissioner for The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, an advisory board member for the new Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum, and board member of CalArts, his alma mater.
In 2018 Barrois exhibited FútBallet, a miniature sculpture and animation installation at the Pérez Art Museum Miami in The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art, an animated profile on author TaNehisi Coates for topic.com (@topicstories), and Prizefighter, an animated sportrait of Jack Johnson, the first African American World Heavyweight champion. He followed that in 2019 with his Black Jockeys Praxinoscope at Quotidian Gallery in downtown Los Angeles, an animated music video for blues phenom Kingfish, inclusion in Little Nemo’s Progress: Animation and Contemporary Art at the Oklahoma State Museum of Art, and recently exhibited For... Freedom, an animated short film commissioned by ForFreedoms.org that debuted at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles.
“Covid Chess Set“ 2020
Lyndon J Barrois, Sr
Mixed media: Chewing gum wrappers, magnetic board, glass test tubes, cork, acetate, wire, acrylic, ink, watercolors, sponge, cotton, vinyl tape, acrylic mirrors. 15”x15”x5”
Inspired by daily breaking news and one of a series of “Pickett’s Charge” paintings by Mort Künstler, depicting the epic Civil War battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. An event also inspired by Mark Bradford’s massive groundbreaking installation of the same name, at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC. This piece will make its 2020 debut on Juneteenth at BandofVices.com gallery in Los Angeles, as part of the Masterpiece group show.
The Covid Chess Set is a literal interactive sculpture where my gum wrapper miniatures are the game pieces, encased in test tubes, laid out on a checkerboard of red, white and blue square, wrapped in a border of caution tape. Patrons are encouraged to actually put on masks and gloves and play. The challenge is to pick a side - an army - and take on the personas of the powerful virus and incompetent, villainous politics (red side) or the heroic first responders, frontline workers and victims (blue side). It forces half the players, those who choose the red side representing the power hungry Trump administration and it’s cohorts, to either give in to their own morality by losing, or their egos and callousness by winning. Choosers of the blue side have to play their best game to win - period! Therefore my Covid Chess Set is a literal representation of this pandemic and ensuing civil unrests, their affect on our divisive racial and economic politics, and a test of this nation’s moral compasses - much like the Civil War itself. It is a biting, lasting portrait of America in 2020.
Lyndon J Barrois, Sr Los Angeles, CA
Artist, Animation Director, Filmmaker
@itsawrapper
