Luiz Escañuela (1993, São Caetano do Sul, Brazil) found in the medium of painting the tools for his artistic expression. His visual research focuses on the human figure. In his paintings, the bodies appear fragmented, as faces, hands, torsos, and feet, or in dramatic compositions that converge history and political allegory on large canvas. Time, in Escañuela’s works, can be seen not only in the time-consuming process of creating the paintings, but in the mixing of images and narratives from different eras to establish his own version of an anachronistic contemporaneity. By bringing those elements together, the artist reaffirms the necessity of facing not only the crises of the present, but also the traumas of the past.

In the sharpness of his images, which surpasses photography, we see the artist’s devotion to detail. Luiz Escañuela’s painting aims to establish the particular, playing with the tensions around what is visible or invisible, bringing to perception forms often lost in the midst of the whole, sometimes leaving them incomplete, absent, or immersed in shadow. Escañuela’s mastery of painting’s techniques, his understanding of light and his interest in figuration led him to a radical approach to realism, creating detailed fictional bodies, maps, scenes and gestures that can simultaneously disturb and seduce the gaze.

Amongst Luiz Escañuela solo exhibitions are: Não se Esqueça do que é Épico, at Usina Luis Maluf, in São Paulo, Brazil (2022); DISRUPTO, at Luis Maluf Gallery, in São Paulo, Brazil (2019). He  participated in many group shows, such as: Santos 2022, at Museu de Santos, in Santos, Brazil (2022); Tangentes II, at Luis Maluf Gallery, in São Paulo, Brazil (2021); Drive-Thru Art, at ARCA, in São Paulo, Brazil (2020); Menu degustação, at Luis Maluf Gallery, in São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Compartiarte, at Centro Brasileiro Britânico, in São Paulo, Brazil (2017); and Rotas Show, at Museu Belas Artes, in São Paulo, Brazil (2015); among others.