Lucas Arruda

Many of Lucas Arruda’s dense, atmospheric paintings appear to be fields of pure abstraction at first glance, yet upon closer inspection, they reveal dreamlike depictions of oceans, twilight or sunrise, and rolling banks of fog or clouds—the compositions remain ambiguous enough for multiple readings. Arruda paints these enigmatic scenes from memory, unmooring them from geographical specificity and letting them pulse with imagined serenity and power. The artist generates a mysterious ambience with his muted, subtly shifting palettes and evocative, scratchy brushwork. Still other canvases depict more explicit scenes of beaches and dense forests. Arruda has exhibited in New York, London, Brussels, Miami, São Paulo, Paris, and Venice. His work has sold for six figures on the secondary market and belongs in the collections of the Fondation Beyeler, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Rubell Museum, and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.