Lucas Rubly
Monumentos à Memória (Monuments to Memory)
June 7 - July 12, 2025
Sea View is pleased to present Monumentos à Memória (Monuments to Memory), the US debut solo exhibition by São Paulo based artist Lucas Rubly.
Lucas Rubly (b. 1991, São Paulo, BR) creates intimately scaled, muted paintings that trace the gradual disintegration of ecologies and structures within Brazil. His subjects, which include collapsing colonial architecture, abstracted buildings, soft landscapes, and crumbling sand castles, reflect the erasure of collective memories, native cultures, and land.
Rubly follows in the footsteps of Brazilian modernists such as Alfredo Volpi for inhabiting the space between the figurative and the abstract, as well as his mentor Paulo Pasta for the metaphysical presence and sensitivity to tone and light in his paintings. Rubly frames his practice through the lens of existentialist thought—especially in regards to Albert Camus’ reflections on the necessity for meaning in the face of inevitable extinction. “I feel that the paintings – the structures, the flowers – are elements resisting disappearance even when they know time has already won,” Rubly explains. “It’s a way of affirming that beauty is still worth it, that it still exists, even in ruin.”
His paintings emerge from the gaps and failures of recollection, transforming half-remembered places such as childhood sandcastles and circus tents into fragile monuments against forgetting. These scenes, rendered in delicate brushwork and subdued palettes, evoke a sense of melancholy and impermanence. "I'm drawn to things that don't hold for long, that exist in silence," Rubly reflects. Each work becomes what he describes as "an attempt—even while accepting defeat—to make something made of dust hold and endure."
Lucas Rubly has an upcoming solo exhibition at Artur Fidalgo, São Paulo, BR (2025) and upcoming group exhibitions at Althuis Hofland, Amsterdam, NL (2025); Samuele Visentin, London, UK (2025); and Centro MariAntonia da USP, São Paulo, BR (2025). He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Galeria Verve, São Paulo BR (2024); Samuele Visentin, London, UK (2024) and has participated in group exhibitions at Espaço República, São Paulo, BR (2025); Espaço Delirium, São Paulo, BR (2024); Casa SP-Arte São Paulo, BR (2024); Galeria Millan, São Paulo, BR (2024); New Gallery, São Paulo, BR (2023); and Galeria Tato, São Paulo, BR (2023).