LYDIA OKUMURA

For more than fifty years, Okumura has employed geometric abstraction to investigate the understanding and experience of space, expanding its possibilities through form and colour. Using materials such as string, wire, acrylic paint, glass, aluminium, charcoal, and graphite, Okumura creates site-specific installations that relate directly to the architecture of the exhibition space. In them, plane figures are painted on the corners of walls that are connected by wires, resulting in geometric shapes that project into the spatial field and create the illusion of three-dimensional objects. Although this practice can be framed in the minimalist tradition, op art is also at play. Through modest but ingenious interventions, Okumura questions the perception of our bodily presence in the environment.

In the field of painting and drawing, in practices that she adopted from the early 1970s onwards, Lydia remains faithful to her questions and continues to propose the same spatial issues. Her abstract compositions simulate geometric configurations in architectural spaces, where the use of color is crucial to suggest three-dimensionality through chromatic variations.

Lydia is part of a group of artists such as Tomie Ohtake, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, and Mira Schendel, who helped define conceptual art as we know it. Through paintings, installations, and sculptures produced with minimal resources, the artist’s works challenge preconceived concepts of space. Given this relevance and reference status, Lydia’s career justifies a major collaborative movement between two of the country’s most prominent galleries, aimed at expanding her presence at a time that celebrates her career and contribution to art.

Regarding the collaboration in this project, the galleries share a very clear vision. ‘Collaboration between galleries is a very current trend and, in our view, a healthy and welcome development for our sector. For us, the union of powers represents opportunities to expand the presence of a seminal artist like Lydia,’ says Jaqueline Martins, founding partner of Martins&Montero.

‘We believe that the work of an artist like Lydia Okumura can yield very interesting and prolific dialogues with the artists in our program. The partnership with Martins&Montero arose from our shared desire to ensure that Okumura’s work can reach ever larger audiences in Brazil and abroad,’ adds Alexandre Roesler, partner and director of Nara Roesler.