Museé D’Orsay, Paris, France
April 8–July 20, 2025
This April, on the occasion of the 2024 France-Brazil season, the Musée d’Orsay’s Impressionist Gallery will present works by Lucas Arruda. This will be the institution’s first solo exhibition to focus on an artist from the Southern Hemisphere. The exhibition will be largely composed of small canvases from the Deserto-Modelo series: imaginary landscapes, inner visions painted from memory in the study.
Lucas Arruda’s paintings are never created “sur le motif” or based on photographs, but are always mnemonic reconstructions close to abstraction. Like the impressionists, however, the question of light and discernable projection of a form of introspection is particularly perceptible in them. As the artist wrote, “Light is at the centre of my work. It is movement. It is light that guides my painting, which creates intensity and finishes by creating spaces that are neither abstract nor figurative”. Although small in size, Lucas Arruda’s paintings are imbued with dramatic tension, and it is clear that each brushstroke is decisive, paradoxically monumental given the scale of the canvas.
The exhibition is curated by Nicolas Gausserand and Sylvain Amic.
The first time for a contemporary project at the Musée d’Orsay, this exhibition will be joined by a simultaneous monographic presentation at the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, Lucas Arruda: Deserto-Modelo, where an exhibition of Lucas Arruda’s multimedia works will complement the show at the Musée d’Orsay. Lucas Arruda: Deserto-Modelo will be the first major solo exhibition in France to span the artist’s career, with works from different periods, including some produced specifically for the occasion.
Learn more at the Musée d’Orsay.
