 (b. 1983) is known for his intricate, meditative compositions that blur the boundaries between mnemonic and imaginative registers. His evocative landscapes are more a product of a state of mind than depictions of particular locales. As he has noted, “The only reason to call my works landscapes is cultural—it’s simply that viewers automatically register my format as a landscape, although none of the images can be traced to a geographic location. It's the idea of landscape as a structure, rather than a real place.”

Born in 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil, Arruda received his BFA from Faculdade Santa Marcelina, São Paulo, in 2009. In 2023, Arruda’s work was on view in 

, a site-specific solo exhibition, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, that was presented in the library of the Ateneo de Madrid. A solo exhibition of the artist's work, 

, was on view at Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2021, and traveled to Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, in 2022. The artist’s first large-scale institutional solo show, 

, was on view at the Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, in 2019. Arruda’s work has also been included in numerous prominent group exhibitions worldwide, including 

, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2019); and

, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019). In October 2024, Arruda's work will be on view at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo as part of 

, the 38th edition of the Panorama da Arte Brasileira biennial exhibition.

In 2018, a monograph on the artist was published by Éditions Cahiers d’Art, Paris, with texts by Fernanda Brenner, Chris Sharp, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. In 2020, David Zwirner Books published a comprehensive monograph on Arruda’s work, with texts by Will Chancellor and Barry Schwabsky. In 2022, the Fridericianum, Kassel, published an accompanying catalogue to the artist’s 2019 solo exhibition, with texts by Vincenzo de Bellis, Fernanda Brenner, Marlene Bürgi, Lilian Tone, Theodora Vischer, and Moritz Wesseler.

Arruda’s work has been represented by David Zwirner since 2018, and he has had three solo exhibitions with the gallery in London (2017), New York (2019), and Paris (2022). In May 2024, David Zwirner, New York, will present a solo exhibition of Arruda’s work titled 

His work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Boros Collection, Berlin; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands; Long Museum, Shanghai; M Woods Museum, Beijing; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Museu de arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Pinault Collection, Paris; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Rubell Museum, Miami; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, United Kingdom; TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Madrid; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the X Museum, Beijing. Arruda lives and works in São Paulo.

 The artist cited in Angeria Rigamonti di Cutò, “Lucas Arruda: ‘The only reason to call my works landscapes is cultural,’” 

Lucas Arruda at the print shop René Tazé, Paris, 2023. Photo by Matthew Avignone

Will Chancellor is the author of the novel 

(2014) and is currently writing an alternate history of the Soviet space program titled 

. He recently introduced César Aira’s 

Will Chancellor

and coeditor of international reviews for 

. He has published several books of criticism, of which the most recent are 

The Observer Effect: On Contemporary Painting 

Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism 

The Perpetual Guest: Art in the Unfinished Present 

(2016), as well as of poetry. He has taught at Goldsmiths College, Yale University, and the Maryland Institute College of Art, among others, and lives in New York.

Barry Schwabsky

Texts by Will Chancellor and Barry Schwabsky

The first comprehensive monograph on the work of Brazilian painter Lucas Arruda elucidates the artist’s intricate, meditative compositions.

Arruda has gained critical acclaim for atmospheric paintings that fluctuate between abstraction and figuration, imagination and reality. This monograph presents three groups of works loosely characterized as seascapes, jungles, and monochromes. Collectively titled 

, they have an ephemeral, transient quality.

Arruda’s intimately sized paintings of seascapes and junglescapes are characterized by their subtle rendition of light. Painted from memory, they are devoid of specific reference points, instead achieving their variety through the depiction of atmospheric conditions. Verging on abstraction, the compositions are grounded by an ever-present, if sometimes faint, horizon line that offers a perception of distance. They appear at once familiar and imaginary. Through his often evocative and textured brushstrokes, Arruda foregrounds the materiality and physicality of paint, while also recalling his genres’ historical associations with the notion of the romantic sublime.

Alongside meticulous color plates and powerful details, author Will Chancellor offers a close reading of the work, raising questions about artifice, thresholds, and perception. Critic Barry Schwabsky unpacks the challenges posed by Arruda’s mysterious painted surfaces. As a whole, this book provides a detailed introduction to the work of a uniquely thoughtful and inventive artist.

Lucas Arruda: Deserto-Modelo

Lucas Arruda: Deserto-Modelo | David Zwirner Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.