Lucas Arruda Lives and works in São Paulo, b. 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil

Lucas Arruda's work obstinately concentrates on a well-defined theme within the canon of art history in order to examine complex contemporary mental states. His research develops fundamentally around landscape, thinking and experimenting with our capacity of living through the mediation of light and the gaze.

Through a powerful and cohesive series of oil paintings, as well as slide projections and light installations, his landscapes exist in the point of tension between abstraction and figuration, between apparition and emptiness. With each gaze, experiences are demarcated in a process of construction and reconstruction of memory, as if the formulation of fields of color touched on the immaterial body of temporal landscapes and experienced sensations.

As we move above and below horizon lines, the artist puts us before atmospheres that are charged with visual as well as metaphysical questions. Between sky and earth, the ethereal and solid, the imagination and the reality, a meditative contemplation finds its routine while following an endless, and not always clear, a cycle of sublimation and deposition of matter.

Lucas Arruda (1983, São Paulo) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

His solo exhibitions include: Assum Preto, David Zwirner, New York (2024); Assum Preto, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Madrid (2023); Lugar sem lugar, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2022); Lugar sem lugar, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre (2021); Lucas Arruda, Pond Society, Shanghai (2020); Fridericianum, Kassel (2019); Lucas Arruda, Cahiers d’Art, Paris (2018); Deserto-Modelo, Indipendenza, Rome (2016); Deserto-Modelo, Lulu, México DF (2015); Deserto-Modelo, Pivô, São Paulo (2015).

Additionally, Arruda’s work has been included in institutional group shows at David Zwirner: 30 Years, David Zwirner, Los Angeles (2024); The Ecologies of Peace, C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba (2024); Fukei-Ga (Landscape Painting), Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2024); Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2024); Avant L'Orage, Pinault Collection, Paris (2023); Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2023); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2022); MASP, São Paulo (2022); Pinault Collection | Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing (2022); Natureculture, Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2021 & 2020); Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2020); Aprendendo com Miguel Bakun: Subtropical, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2019); Luogo e Segni, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019); Volcano Extravaganza, Fiorucci Art Trust, Stromboli (2019); City Prince/sses, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2019); Beyeler Collection / Nature + Abstraction, Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2018); Debout!, Couvent des Jacobins and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes (2018); Curar e Reparar, Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Coimbra, Coimbra (2017); Soft Power, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (2016); Cry of Liberty, 1ª Bienal Internacional de Asunción, Asunción (2015); Chambres à Part, Edition VIII, La Réserve Paris, Paris (2013); La Bienal 2013: Here is Where We Jump, Museo del Barrio, New York (2013); Arte Brasileira Contemporânea, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo (2012).

Arruda’s work is included in prominent collections such as Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Boros Collection, Berlin; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami; Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateubriand (MASP), São Paulo; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo; Pinaut Collection, Paris; Rockbund Art Museum, Shangai; Rubell Museum, Miami; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedlijik Museum, Amsterdan; Tate Modern, London; TBA21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Madrid; X Museum, Beijing.