I was writing about the geometry of faces in yesterday’s post about Modigliani. Well, there’s geometry of faces and then there’s geometry of faces!
Pablo Lobato is an designer, illustrator and caricaturist from Argentina who has an uncanny ability to distill the essence of a likeness out of starkly graphic geometric shapes.
The structures of his famous faces are amazingly abstract (in the true meaning of that word) and the images are wonderfully composed as graphic designs. The result is a beautiful blend and balance of design and drawing.
Caricaturists often seem to try to push the envelope to see how far they can distort a face and yet keep or reinforce the strength of the likeness. Lobato excels here as well, presenting objects that almost seem like they couldn’t even be used to represent a human face if viewed individually, that come together in an uncannily strong likeness.
Most of his portraits are of musicians and actors, and occasionally of sports or political figures or even one of his artistic heroes, Picasso.
Lobato has done work for Rolling Stone, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Time, TV Guide and The New York Daily News, among others.
There is an article here on Illustration Mundo, and a gallery on the site of his rep, Anna Goodson.
The links page of his site includes links to other artists and caricaturists as well as related sites.
Link via Metafilter.
I´m Ana, Pablo´s mother cardiologist. I used to see Pablo´s work in the Newyorker but I didn´t know who Pablo was, since a couple of days, when occasionaly her mother told me. So I begun to search more about Pablo´s art trought the web. Is amazing. His mother is a wonderfull and a very special woman whom I appreciate a lot. Congratulations Pablo. You have a new fan!