Dates
May 14 – Jun 28, 2026
Galerie Lelong, New York, is pleased to present Lucia Laguna: Apenas Meus Cabelos São Brancos. This is the first solo exhibition in the United States for the Brazilian artist and is organized in collaboration with Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition presents new paintings from two of the artist's ongoing bodies of work, Pequenos formatos (Small formats) and Paisagem (Landscape), exemplifying Laguna's vibrant palette, and the juxtaposition between architecture and natural forms that defines her practice. Taking inspiration from windows, and the orderly way they frame our view of the world, Laguna uses color blocking and geometric forms to organize her pictorial planes, interspersed with exuberant bursts of flora. Laguna's paintings reflect her Rio de Janeiro home, conveying the artist's personal vision of the world around her. The works on view, all created within the past year, reflect a recent shift in Laguna's practice prompted by a change in her studio environment. For four decades, her personal and artistic life was rooted in her home and garden in the northern suburbs of Rio de Janeiro; about three years ago, she relocated to an apartment in the Laranjeiras neighborhood. This historic area in the city's southern zone is between two mountains, with a denser urban configuration than her prior neighborhood. As her views changed and her studio space became more condensed, her proximity to her canvases and to her neighbors triggered compositional shifts. Her semi-abstracted landscapes seem to exist in undefinable spaces, both obscured and framed by windows, doors, and tiles. Each successive layer of paint adds dynamic organic forms--often trees and flowers, but sometimes birds and human forms. In doing so, Laguna addresses fracturing of natural spaces in the wake of urban development, and the persistence of nature to exist in spite of this. Examples of her Pequenos formatos (Small formats) paintings take on an impressionistic quality while continuing her investigation of the relationship between domestic and urban spaces. In these intimately scaled works, which the artist calls "little delights," Laguna paints with broad, textured brushstrokes that highlight the organic nature of her forms. In some Pequenos formatos, spatial reasoning is provided by stark lines of vibrant color that recall fences and window-frames. In others, geometric order is more directly rooted in the landscape, in tree trunks and houses whose edges contrast with the lushness of the vegetation. In Lucia Laguna's practice, her adoration of nature merges with her precise understanding of perspective, and how man-made elements impact how the organic world is seen. What results are poignant, exuberant distillations of how it feels to be human in a rapidly changing world. Lucia Laguna’s paintings unfold through an encounter with her surroundings—from garden views and foliage to urban fragments such as fencing, billboards, and power lines—entangled within abstract textures and networks of geometric motifs. These elements gather in carefully calibrated gestures that assemble landscapes and vistas across fractured pictorial planes. Forms appear and dissolve across the canvas, emerging through the accumulation and erasure of successive layers of paint. Like the suburban carioca views the artist observes from the windows of her studio, her compositions are driven by a wayward, palimpsestic logic. Her solo exhibitions include A Propósito de duas janelas, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil (2025); Life is Only Possible Reinvented, Sadie Coles, London, UK (2022); Se Hace Camino al Andar, Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2021); Lucia Laguna, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil (2020); Paisagem, Galeria Karsten Greve Cologne, Cologne, Germany (2019); Lucia Laguna: Vizinhança, MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil (2018). Laguna has taken part in the group shows Direito à forma, Galeria Fonte, Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil (2024); Dos brasis: arte e pensamento negro, SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); Crônicas Cariocas, MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2022) and the 30th Bienal de São Paulo – A iminência das poéticas, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2012).