Lucia Love (b. 1988, New York, NY) studied painting and traditional animation at the School of Visual Arts with support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Early on, they were drawn to character design for its ability to express metaphysical states through gesture. Today, their paintings weave together art history, mythology, politics, and power, creating contemporary allegories that sit within the lineage of idea painting.
Love’s works often stage opposites: doom and hope, solidarity and isolation, reality and fantasy. Their Doomerang series, including The Water Carrier, explores the tension between the body’s limits and the possibility of transcendence. Recent canvases turn toward angelic lore, placing mutated paper-doll rings as collective heads for biblical figures, while the Spancil series borrows from Arthurian legend to depict hollowed forms adrift in emptiness. Historical figures surface alongside these mythic beings, blurring the lines between history, religion, and story.
Technically, Love mixes hyperrealism, loose brushwork, and cartoon line into dense, charged compositions. Their paintings have been shown at Albertz Benda, Cue Foundation, Sargent’s Daughters, The Hole, JDJ Gallery, and more. They have also designed characters for Sony Animation and assisted artists Emily Mae Smith and Jeff Koons. Their work has been covered by The New York Times, ArtNet, Hyperallergic, and Art21 Magazine. A Pioneer Works resident and Shandaken Paint School fellow, Love’s art is held in the collections of The Bunker Artspace (Beth Rudin DeWoody) and the Xiao Museum in Rizhao, China.
