BIOGRAPHY

The artist Lara Donatoni Matana from Andradina, a small city in the countryside of São Paulo state, has set herself a challenge that goes beyond the horizons that the human eye can capture. The self-taught artist did not imagine that she was beginning a career towards a unique signature in the history of contemporary Brazilian art.

At the age of 22, she came into contact with Art, having had training only in free courses and individual research of materials, which led her to find her own creative identity.

Just as Lara seeks her connection with the divine through spiritual practice, trees do so through their roots, with which they leave marks on the earthly ground in search of balance and consonance with the essence of the planet.

Nowadays, she lives in her own village, as she calls it, which comprises her house, the studio, the gallery, and her yoga studio, where she teaches weekly classes in the city of Valinhos, Campinas region, in the countryside of Sao Paulo state.

From 2000, she searched for poetics in a formal abstraction, discovering the intrinsic possibilities of wood as a raw material. Lara uses only discarded trunks and wood of fallen trees, as she believes that we, as humans, have the duty to spread environmental awareness and care about sustainability. 

The artist is dedicated to the continuous studies of sculptural techniques to achieve all possible forms, and even some intangible, of bringing natural art to every detail she works with.

In 2008, a year after her entry into the Brazilian Academy of Fine Arts, whose patron is the painter Henrique Bernardelli, she was promoted to vice-chair. Also noteworthy is her participation in the Young Art Matogrossense Salon and the idealization of a sculpture that led to her winning the “Guará Troféu” at Mato Grosso Environmental Film Festival.

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