Luiza Gottschalk

Lives and works in São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil

Artist statement

Luiza Gottschalk is a painter interested in action and the natural chemical relationships that take place in the studio. Very into the process itself, opening her own paths, creating unique practices and processes. Guided by color, light and matter. Layered overlays. Also with a deep interest in works that seek the spiritual in art, and images that could sing the reality. Images, in plural. The artist lived until the age of nine in the forest of the Mantiqueira Mountains. Her paintings evoke the power and the visceral character of nature in the “crying mountains” — meaning of the word Mantiqueira in Tupi-Guarani indigenous language. Interested in originality, Gottschalk is usually thinking and being in relation with her paintings in different ways, trying to establish physicality and emotions to the work. Her process recaptures the magical nature of art, incorporating the knowledge, symbolism, and metaphors inherent to colors, sounds, flavors, textures, and scents that the Earth offers us. The painter, as she invokes a kind of memorialism, elects diving in the mystical current pointed out by Heraclitus as a metaphor of life: the river, which is always itself and something else. Luiza adds a lot of water to mineral pigments, making them travel through fine weave fabrics over a canvas, and discovering the paths they reveal to her. It’s about alchemy, and also of silent conversation with the painting itself, especially listening and being available to what unveils in the...

Artwork