Nara Roesler Rio de Janeiro is pleased to present The Intimacy of Light, a solo exhibition by artist Karin Lambrecht, curated by Fernanda Lopes. The show brings together 24 works by the artist, including paintings and watercolors on paper, all of which are part of her recent production in 2025.
Having begun her career in the 1980s, Lambrecht belongs to a generation of artists who reimagine the possibilities of painting, its supports, and its materialities. In her practice, she utilizes a variety of pictorial materials—ranging from traditional painting mediums like dry pastel to more unconventional elements such as copper, charcoal, and even blood in earlier pieces.She has also expanded the scope of painting through works of installation and performative nature.
Karin Lambrecht’s recent production reflects the transformations in her practice since her move from Porto Alegre to Broadstairs, on the Isle of Thanet in the United Kingdom. The broad expanses of color that cover her canvases evoke impressions and sensations derived from the local landscape and its particular light. In the works presented in this exhibition, however, the artist describes a greater sense of “lightness” in the pictorial treatment and construction, in contrast with the more solemn tone of her earlier production. This more optimistic approach, as she describes it, reflects her current stage in life. The proximity to the sea and the continuous act of observing nature have rendered her work more contemplative, and, in her view, more detached from the apocalyptic undertones that often characterize the present times.
These paintings are composed of illuminated fields of color created by mixing pigment with water, giving the canvases a diluted appearance reminiscent of watercolor. The process involves building up layers, demanding physical engagement from both the support and the artist herself. The reds that appear in some of the works are inspired by the Broadstairs sky, tinged with a reddish hue in the late afternoon. Some works feature small engravings of symbols, particularly crosses and hearts, on copper sheets. These symbols, closely tied to biblical narratives, have been part of her visual language early on in her career. While the artist does not consider herself religious, she is drawn to these themes and studies them for their cultural impact and significance within the Western Christian tradition.
Curator and critic Fernanda Lopes notes that Lambrecht’s works “seem to be whispering something,” resonating with both the landscape of the Isle of Thanet and the time spent in the studio. “Here, everything seems alive, everything seems to move, even if at a slower, almost meditative pace.” Lopes also emphasizes the physical and performative dimensions of Lambrecht’s practice, which is carried out entirely by the artist herself. “Between self-portrait and performance, her work results from everything her body attempts, endures, reaches, and manages to execute, constantly testing its own limits,” she adds.
The words and marks on the canvases function as fragments of memory and bodily traces. Notes made with charcoal appear as “whispers diluted among the layers of color,” composing the painting in a sensory rather than textual way. “Karin’s words act like a Brechtian warning, a disturbance that calls the viewer’s, and perhaps her own, attention to the illusion of the picture plane,” writes Lopes.
Another important set of works in the exhibition are the small-format watercolors, which also incorporate elements of collage and embroidery. Karin compares the act of creating them to writing a letter, not only because of their size, but also due to the intimate nature of the works.
Reflecting on her use of color, Karin comments on the contrast between landscapes: “Brazil has this red earth and intensely blue sky, and I think that really left its mark on me. I’ve always felt that blue and red make a perfect, balanced combination.” On the English coast, she now works with more neutral tones, beige sand, brown, greenish moss, and recognizes that this new palette is gradually seeping into her practice. “The internal, spiritual, and rational influences, mixed with the physical capacities of my body, also shape my current moment.”