Leda Catunda

Emanuela Campoli Paris presents a solo exhibition by Leda Catunda, a visual artist, researcher and teacher born in São Paulo in 1961. Recognised as a key figure of Brazil’s Geração 80, she has developed a practice that explores the representation of images and the pop universe through painting, installation and object-based works.

Since the early 1980s, Catunda has transformed printed fabrics, curtains, blankets and towels into “painting-objects”, erasing and repainting their surfaces to strip them of function and reveal new expressive possibilities. Her use of popular and kitsch motifs stems from early experiences of domestic decoration and markets in São Paulo, which shaped her visual vocabulary.

Over time, she has moved from figuration to abstraction, creating large-scale painting-installations and researching the “poetics of softness”, while also incorporating photographic images from archives, friends and online sources. Her work reflects on what she calls “affective consumption”, capturing collective desires and turning them into a playful yet critical visual language.