22nd September – Sadie Coles gallery confirmed the death of their artist Lucia Laguna at her home in Rio de Janeiro, aged 85.
Laguna, known for her vibrant use of colour, and her ability to evoke the atmosphere of her homeland in bold, fearless strokes, came late to painting – it was only when she was 54 that she felt the pull towards expressing herself on canvas. Having retired from teaching, she enrolled herself in Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro, where she studied for six years under Charles Watson. Speaking to Frieze in 2023, Laguna discussed her studio, which she was proud of inhabiting for twenty-five years.
‘Through the wide windows I can see part of Rio’s Zona Norte [North Zone], where the densely urban – like the train track and the Mangueira favela community – tangles with the hilly geography and vegetation. This landscape is very important to me. The surroundings change when a neighbour cuts down a tree, for example, but the garden is always my garden, always growing. It’s a very intimate place, where I work every day, very close to what I paint.’
In their tribute to Laguna, Sadie Coles said
‘Her work, at once intimate and open to the world, occupies a fundamental place in contemporary Brazilian art.’
Laguna had a solo exhibition at Sadie Coles in 2022, which was her first solo UK exhibition, entitled Life is only possible reinvented – the title of the exhibition being a translated verse from Brazilian poet Cecília Meireles’ Reinvenção: “A vida só é possível reinventada”, first published in her book Vaga Música, 1942. The exhibition incorporated painting and collage, and her works were – as was typical of her body of work – into three distinct groupings: Jardim (Garden), Estúdio (Studio) and Paisagem (Landscape). Her use of colour was always bold, but never brash – Brazil through the eyes of a sensitive, and highly engaged creator, whose love of her surroundings sparked instant visual engagement with her viewer.
In an interview with Lais Amaral in 2024, Laguna discussed her practice, and why she pursued a career in the arts
‘I chose painting as my medium because it made sense to me. I was involved with written arts, but also manual arts, as I even did some embroidery and things like that. My husband and I had a toy factory for children. Once you are in that environment and transition to art, you see that you were actually thinking about sculpture back there [in the toy factory]. Everything is connected. It was very easy, very simple to make that transition.’
Lucia Laguna leaves behind a daughter and two grandchildren.
Find out more about the artist, and see more of her work on the Sadie Coles gallery website https://www.sadiecoles.com/artists/lucia-laguna
Image
Lucia Laguna, Paisagem no.145, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 2 × 1.5 m. Courtesy: Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro; photograph: Sumara Rouff
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