Expanded Painting: An Interview with Lala Drona

I recently had the opportunity to chat with artist Lala Drona about her approach to expanded painting, the intersection of physical and digital worlds, and her artistic journey. Lala’s work will be exhibited at the Royal College of Art's degree show from 19th June to 22nd June, which is open to the public. You can see her work at laladrona.com or on Instagram @laladronaofficial.

Can you explain what expanded painting is?

Well, thank you for having me on here, Carrie. Expanded painting I think is defined as painting plus anything else. You start from the idea of painting and then you expand from there. It can be like maybe a painting that's not a square, it's more of a triangle, or maybe it extends or comes off the canvas. Maybe there's holes in the canvas like Lucio Fontana. It's kind of just expanding.

Your work seems to balance between the physical and virtual. Your painting is incredibly physical—heavy, dense, and textured—yet you're having this conversation about virtual reality and virtual worlds. How did you end up with this balancing act?

Wow, that's a good question. Right now, what I'm doing with my work is really inspired by this feeling of the last scream of physicality, of humanity's physicality as we go into a more digital or violent world. And so I put that type of energy into the paintings.

There's something about the physical world that I love—the sensations, the feelings of it. That's why within my paintings, you can see traces of fingers, you can see that visceral quality. I'm also thinking about the digital world and what modern beauty is today, and kind of subverting those ideas.

Modern beauty today is defined by non-resistance—anything smooth. Smooth paintings are maybe a lot easier to digest. But I like beauty with an edge. I like that visceral quality to paintings, and it reminds me of the physical world, while flat painting pulls me more into that digital world where there's a certain flattening. Think about Facetune, taking away the lines. In that digital world, there's a certain flatness and smoothness happening.

Miss America (2025) Acrylic and encaustic oil paint on canvas 220x195cm

You talked about digital worlds and in the same breath said "a more violent place." What's that about?

Who knows if it's actually more violent today than it was yesterday? Maybe we just know about more of it because of social media and our ability to communicate. But I feel like violence can come in different forms. It's not just physical. I think it's evolved through the ages.

There's a different type of violence happening that might be taking away one's reality or changing one's reality. We can see that through deep fakes or this idea of questioning what is reality, what is distraction, especially within politics as well. I think we get a lot of distractions today and we don't really know what the truth is anymore.

There's this feeling of being stuck in this place where we don't know what the old story is, but we also don't know what the new story is. We know we can't go back to the past, but we also don't know how to go forward into the future, and we're kind of stuck in this place right now.

Why use painting to tackle all of this?

That's a really good question. I've asked myself that before because I do use videos sometimes, but I have decided to commit to painting. I think there's almost a protest or a way of holding on to the physical world, holding on to something that makes us human—the beautiful parts of being human. There's a tactile touch, an encounter that happens between our bodies in the world that I want us to continue having.

Your paintings are so textural. You seem to be almost fighting with us to think about material.

Yeah, exactly. There's something about painting where I want to make work that you have a different experience with when you see it in real life than when you do online. It's great that we can show our work online. However, it makes everything flat. Flat painting works great for that. But it's really nice when I see a painting online and then see it in real life and there's a difference—a surprise, a texture, something to discover.

The use of my body itself within my process is really important. I start on the floor and I work with gravity, and there's a certain tension and resistance that I'm actually fighting with. So maybe you can feel that. And then after that, I move to the wall. So there's like a different dance going on there.

How did you come to painting in the first place? What's your story?

I was born in Colorado in Denver. My mom is a Venezuelan immigrant and my dad is from New York, so I also speak Spanish. I've always been an artist. It was just something that was always there, and luckily my mom supported me in that—but I still had both parents telling me I needed to study something different, of course.

What really was the genesis of my work as a commitment or a compulsion was during puberty. I was born with a congenital deformity, which resulted in only one breast growing during puberty. I kept that secret for a long time from everyone, from my family and everything. During that time, I used art as this sort of protective place that I could go to and have freedom and comfort.

Eventually down the line, I had quite a few reconstructive surgeries, and I think that has also influenced the viscerality or the physical aspect in my work. It started out as sort of a protection or an escape, but by now it's opening up into this place of freedom and transformation.

Your work is haunting. You scrape at things. Knowing your story now, the wanting of your presence to be part of the making makes more sense. Do you want the work to feel that angst?

I was a punk rocker growing up, or I mean, if you can call it that, because I was a little bit after the actual real punk rockers. I was, I guess, a ghost of the punk rockers. There's always been a bit of angst. I think growing up as a teenager, you go into angst. I especially had my angst because of my body, and I think that I bring that with me into my work. It comes out sometimes in the line.

I think there's a hidden art like doodling or things that we don't really show people—like drawings in our notebooks in high school. I have decided to celebrate that, so sometimes there might be some cartoonish figures. There might be the line itself that becomes more present. That intensity is important to me.

I noticed figures in your work. Some are alarming, like one that seems to be screaming, while others feel more friendly and sweet. Are they characters in a narrative, or what are they for you?

For me, I did a few paintings where I decided to start out with a dream or a figure from a dream. The Egyptians thought that you could commune with the dead in dreams, or cross to the spirit world, and I thought that was interesting. So I decided to try to paint what I was dreaming, and then fill up the painting kind of unconsciously.

Under his Eye (2024) Encaustic oil paint on canvas 150x200cm

Those figures came from there. But strangely enough, they began to become more buried under material. I would scratch away the material in order to reveal them, but I think they were disappearing because I was going towards more abstraction, but more of a figurative abstraction.

I don't really know who they are. They're not in the future. They're not in the past. They're not in a dream, but they're maybe some sort of parallel. I think they're us, that's for sure in some way, but I'm not sure beyond that.

How has it been navigating the art world in the UK versus elsewhere?

I left Colorado quite early, right after my studies, and I went to Paris, so I didn't really immerse myself into the art world there. I've only been in England since last August, about seven months, to go to the Royal College of Art in the painting program.

So far, comparing Paris and being in that art world versus being in London, I think it might be the language thing, but it's a lot easier to speak to people and approach people here. French people are very nice too, but there's just a difference.

Besides that, in Mayfair, the architectural planning of everything being in the same place really makes a difference for what goes on on a Thursday night or on an opening night. The commercial art world here is very much bumping.

In Paris, though, there's this rich cultural history and just being there feels like such a big celebration of culture and art and that kind of free thinking and creativity.

How has your experience been at the Royal College of Art?

The RCA is quite an incredible experience. They've taken, let's say, 150 painters and we're all together in two buildings that are right next to each other, so practically one building. If you think about it, what happens when you put 150 people who usually identify with the margins or are neurodivergent in some way or just different in our brains because we've chosen to do this thing—and the egos as well?

It becomes such a beautiful place for that cross-pollination of art, but it can also just be a wild place. I really think somebody should make a reality TV show about it.

The program is one year now, so it's very intense because it's been kind of shoved into that one year. All of the energy is wild because we're all sensitive creatures as artists. You walk into the building and you can feel the collective energy. You can feel when it's stressed, when it's sad, when it's happy. It's just riding this roller coaster. It could be too much for some people, but it's also an amazing experience.

Artists are so dedicated to their practices, living in their studios for 8+ hours every day. What do you hope for your work? Where do you want it to go?

Wow. I hope that it will touch people. I want the work to give people the courage to transform, and I want them to feel invited to look a little longer.

Of course, like the big dreams, I would love to see it in museums one day—that would be amazing, the big ones. But more than anything, I want to connect to people and help people not feel alone. I think that's always the best encounter with the work, when someone can tell me that they saw my work and they didn't feel alone. That's one of the best compliments.

Do you think your work is political?

Yes, it is political. I think that art is political. Living in a world that doesn't necessarily push you in the way of being an artist, because of gains and values and all of that—although I know that there is an art market—it doesn't start out that way for all of us. So I do think it's political just making it.

I do think being a woman, or let's say people who are historically urged to keep silent in a lot of ways, can be seen as political. Not only because of identity politics, of course, but art in general is political in the way of just denying our collective reality and proposing something new.

Lala Drona's work will be exhibited at the Royal College of Art's degree show from June 19th to June 22nd, which is open to the public. You can see her work at laladrona.com or on Instagram @laladronaofficial.

Disclaimer: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.