MLL Atelier, LLC is a studio practice creating research-driven projects at the intersection of art and architecture, with specialization at the frontier of human potential, aesthetic beauty, and phenomenology of space. Founded by Maria Lorena Lehman, this innovative studio practice creates spatial poetics not experienced before, by finding new interdisciplinary connections between a multitude of fields, including: neuroscience, physics, captology, and philosophy. MLL Atelier wins awards for projects and publications internationally, while also disseminating artworks and subsequent research-based outcomes worldwide. 

ON MARIA LORENA LEHMAN'S METHODOLOGY

I create art to sense, interpret, and inspire the world. In turn, this feeds new discoveries and questions into my sensory research which can then be applied to digital, architectural, and urban environmental design. As a result of these findings which I publish as books, such environments evolve — unfolding to reveal new world realities that call upon me to create art once again. Thus, the process continuously repeats.

My research methodology and creative process by phase are as follows:

(1) Observation: Literature/data review, experiential journaling, and communication to help me observe reality.
(2) Creation: Art creation to deeply sense, interpret, and inspire the world.
(3) Conceptualization: Multi-sensory design conceptualization which I derive from discoveries and questions embedded within my art creations.
(4) Application: Dissemination of my multi-sensory design findings that evolve digital, architectural, and urban environments in ways that create a better world through my teachings as courses and book publications.
(5) Evolution: A new world reality is created, and I repeat this process again.

The time is ripe to continue pushing the boundaries of what environments can do to uplift quality of life for the evolution of humanity and the planet. MLL Atelier aims to channel the vision of Maria Lorena Lehman in exciting ways to help guide our future toward highest potential trajectories through the ever-expansive realm of art and design.

Maria Lorena Lehman is a visionary author, designer, and artist focusing on links between architectural design, science, and human potential as explored through her research-driven art practice. Lehman is author of the internationally published book entitled, Adaptive Sensory Environments, which won the Silver Medal Nautilus Book Award. ArchDaily describes Maria Lorena Lehman as “one of the leading experts on delivering exceptional occupant experience through smart building design”. Her work attracts an international audience as it bridges between architectural application and universal interpretation to unlock what environments can do to benefit people in innovative ways. The work of Maria Lorena Lehman is described as "evocative visual poetry of motion that is a new inspiration" by Daniel Smith, the company that creates watercolors for artists worldwide.

Lehman holds the degrees of Master in Design with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in the United States, and a Bachelor of Architecture, Cum Laude, from Virginia Tech in the United States. Lehman is recipient of the Harvard University Digital Design Prize for the “most creative use of digital media in relation to the design professions”. While at Harvard University, Lehman worked to innovate healing environments by researching at the nexus of architectural technology, digital media, and neuroscience within the Harvard Graduate School of Design, House_n. Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Neuroscience Department of the Harvard Medical School. Lehman also studied with Professor T. Kelly Wilson during the "Drawing from Masters" course at Harvard University.

Maria Lorena Lehman is internationally published and in numerous periodicals, including The Architect's Journal, Architect Magazine, Wired, Forbes, and Vogue. Currently, her studio work looks for new ways environments can uplift quality of life by innovating experience, which she explores deeply through her artistic process. At the heart of her work is a motivation to push the role of environments into more proactive realms that empower people to thrive and achieve fulfillment at their highest potential. Maria Lorena Lehman has a vision for how interdisciplinary findings between architecture, science, philosophy, and emerging technology can unlock more nurturing environmental futures that she envisions as new architectural possibilities through her artworks that inspire, amaze, and delight in ways not experienced before.

TOWARDS BLOOMVISM

I create in a style that I call Bloomvism. This is derived from the floriculture term for “bloom” which means "to flower into full beauty or health". It is my hope that with Bloomvism as a new artistic style, I can bring a new vision of harmony to help humanity progress into our next evolution in ways that pioneer a better world. Thus, I define Bloomvism as an artistic practice, design philosophy, and environmental system of harmonization for visualizing “architectural blooms” that uplevel consciousness and increase the actualization of highest human potential.

To embody Bloomvism within my paintings and sculptures, I create (semi)abstract representations and/or speculations of reality that have never been seen due to the physical nature of the Universe. For example, my “Echoes of Time” painting captures the moment of first light that turns night into day, my “Metamorphosis from Within” painting deconstructs transcendent symbiosis, my “Refracting the Speed of Light” painting orchestrates variations in matter to bend light symphonically, my “Dual Façade” painting imagines the ultimate convergence of architectural form that spans distances of time, space, and cultural evolution, and my “Edge of Infinity” sculpture depicts how the evolution of choice drives beauty and diversity within growth. My mission is for Bloomvism to guide humanity to “see” beyond what we sense, to grow understanding and imagination into the hidden, complex, and ethereal qualities and systems that drive the Universe to yield its profound and nurturing harmonious beauty. In this way, my Bloomvism style transports viewers into deepest realities that awaken and heighten our perception and creation of what harmonious beauty can make possible in our world.

IMMERSIONS INTO HIDDEN REALMS

By primarily working with painting, sculpture, and book authorship to create visionary environmental artefacts of Bloomvism, my research-driven art practice blurs boundaries by strategically bridging architecture, science, and philosophy. I create art that explores the poetic dynamics between the built environment, human beings, nature, and the cosmos, to yield design applications and universal interpretations that invite deepening immersion into the never-before-seen realms depicted in my art:

✚ At a far distance, my paintings and sculptures are gateways into new realms of natural and built environments, inviting viewers into their grand principles that drive their narrative stories in simplest form.
✚ At a medium distance, the stories within my paintings and sculptures unfold. This is where each new natural or built realm depicted captures attention and focus, inviting one to stay as long as they wish to fully absorb its systems and story.
✚ At a close distance, my paintings and sculptures reveal the relationship between natural or built environmental entities through the way my gestural marks drive one another into harmonious composition. The viewer may even identify with a particular mark as a reflective character.

In essence, I am building worlds that “bloom”.

NURTURING HARMONY

I get my inspiration from the juxtaposition between the beauty and harmony that blooms in the natural world compared to the discord and missed opportunities for beauty that erodes our humanmade world. My mission with Bloomvism is to close this gap, so that what we make as a humanity can rise to enter into beautiful and harmonious symbiosis with the natural world, where both bloom and thrive. Yet, to do this, humanity needs to see beyond “surface beauty” in today’s world – through my art that interprets and makes tangible the otherwise invisible external and internal systems that drive and reveal nature’s deepest beauty, so humanity can learn and apply these “blooms” to humanmade design. In this way, we may heighten our awareness as a humanity so we can thrive with Bloomvism, in a world nurtured into full harmonious health and beauty.

CURATOR HONGLEE

Chosen by Curator HongLee for representation on Artsper and international FOCUS art fairs. Curator HongLee is based in Paris, France.