Cecilia Brunson Projects is pleased to present A Life in Painting, the first solo exhibition in London dedicated to the work of Jandyra Waters (1921–2025), a singular figure in Brazilian post-war abstraction. Featuring paintings from the 1960s to the early 2000s, the exhibition traces the evolution of Waters’ approach to colour, form and space over the course of her career.
Waters came to abstraction at a moment of extraordinary artistic experimentation in Brazil. Concrete and Neo-Concrete art were transforming the possibilities of geometric abstraction, but she remained independent of both movements. In her paintings, structure is never static. Planes overlap, lines slice across the surface and shapes seem to tilt, float or press against one another. Acidic reds and blues meet ochres, browns and muted greens. Hard edges are offset by curves and irregular forms. Geometry holds the composition in place as colour sets it in motion.
The works in A Life in Painting reveal how that language changed over time. In the early 1960s, influenced in part by European Tachisme, Waters worked with fluid, organic forms that hover between abstraction and figuration.