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Lucas Arruda

Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2021

Photo: Everton Ballardin | Courtesy the artist Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo, Brussels and New York

Lucas Arruda

Collection

Lucas Arruda

Untitled (from the series Deserto-Modelo), 2021

TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection

Oil on canvas

40.5 x 46.5 x 2.5 cm

TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection

Extract of the interview of Lucas Arruda in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, April 2018 in Lucas Arruda’s monograph, published by Cahiers d'Art):

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Do you have any other parallel realities, besides monochromes and landscapes?

Lucas Arruda: Yes, jungles.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Yes of course, the jungles. What prompted the jungles?

Lucas Arruda: In fact, I mostly paint imagined horizons. But, in the jungle’s case, there is a less elusive connection. I have a house in the jungle near São Paulo where I go all the time. I guess jungles hold a particular mystery, a sense of imminence – as if something is always about to happen. And for these kinds of paintings I often evoke a character: Curupira. He is a mythological character with inverted feet, a young trickster who protects the jungle. Like Hermes, or Loki, he fools us in order to prevent human connections to the forest. You never know what to expect from Curupira: he might help you or just as easily kill you. The legend says that he is the embodiment of the forest, and I find this especially compelling. The jungle is the only verticality in my work, which somehow grounds it. But Curupira is there to mess around with this idea.

PAST EXHIBITIONS:

Group show: Remedios
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
Date: April 14, 2023 - March 30, 2024

Group show: Liquid Intelligence

Curator: Chus Martínez with Soledad Gutiérrez and María Montero Sierra,

Venue: National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Date: October 10, 2023 – January 28, 2024

Related works in the collection

Lucas Arruda Untitled from Deserto-Modelo series, 2019

Lucas Arruda Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2021

Lucas Arruda Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2019

Artists

Lucas Arruda