Lola Dupre, M1, 2022, 11.6 x 8.2 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
De-forming and smiling at reality
Art
Experimental
Web 3
Through the technique of collage and starting from photographs, the Spanish artist Lola Dupré proposes de-forming and smiling at reality, producing new images that invite humor and the oneiric.
author
Luciana Trost
Date
February 10, 2026
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Lola Dupre, Hexacorn after de Hamilton, 2023,
12 x 16 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
There is something undeniably special and captivating in creativity and in art that involves the conjunction of different materials and textures when it is analog, fait à la main. This is the case with collage. Even more so, in an era largely lost in the multiplicity of screens, in pure digitality, or in the predominance of “creations” made by artificial intelligence (and here we underline the word creations for obvious reasons), we can find a pause in artists such as the illustrator and collage artist Lola Dupré who, without giving up digital media for the publication of her works and, in fact, updating herself to the era of crypto art, continues to commit to that technique born at the beginning of the twentieth century. The collage Dupré pursues involves the creation of works of art from an original image that is distorted through a meticulous layering of small pieces of paper —in different colors— cut with scissors, joined with glue, and guided by a striking imagination to disfigure those originals from which she draws her inspiration. And voilà!, Dupré surprises us with an almost dreamlike result: a cat with multiple eyes, a computer keyboard with countless keys, a house with hundreds of windows, a twelve-story hamburger.
Lola Dupre, Bay after Herring, 2024, 12 x 16 inches.
Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, Spectral after Volkers, 2023, 8.2 x 11.6 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, The Intrepid, 2024, 19.5 x 19.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, Tweety Pie, 2025, 16 x 12 inches.
Courtesy of the artist.
An important and essential point is also to highlight Dupré’s humorous touch in her works. Practically all of her creations evoke a smile, allowing humor to do its work by removing the solemnity that is, at times, inherent to art. The fashion magazine model no longer retains the rigidity typical of a haute couture photo series, but now appears caricatured with an almost infinite neck, multiple eyes, countless fingers on her hand; her image is no longer tied to that unreachable pedestal, to the prototype to be followed. An athlete from the early twentieth century has half of his body duplicated in size, a ship rises in the water with unusual proportions to stay afloat and with windows stacked along its sides, a small airplane remains in the air with an enlarged fuselage like a round belly —which could resemble an animal— and a landing gear of fifteen wheels.
Lola Dupre, Just a phase I am going through, 2025,
16 x 12 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, The David Davis Mansion, 2025,
12 x 16 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, Burger, 2024, 16 x 12 inches.
Courtesy of the artist.
Lola Dupre, Dominique, 2025, 8.2 x 11.6 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Animals also seem to form an essential part of Dupré’s inspiration: kittens with multiple eyes, puppies with small bodies and giant ears —all of them conveying to the viewer an urgent need to want to hug and pet them—, pigs with feminine and stylized “legs”, horses with extremely elongated legs and robust bodies with thick tails.
Sigmund Freud stated in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious that the joke —Witz— is a formation of the unconscious —like dreams or slips of the tongue— and that it allows the release of psychic tensions by “outwitting” social or internal repression (1905). Therefore, we ask ourselves: what would we be without art, and also, what would we be without humor in this life already overwhelmed by duty, acceleration, the news, social networks with constant information, the loss of metaphor, and the arrival and predominance of pure literalness? The answer lies in an outcome born of the articulation of these two essential elements which, for now, are presented here through the art of the magnificent Lola Dupré.
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