CACTUS A SCULPTURE BY LUNA PAIVA

Luna Paiva

BORN PARIS, FRANCE, 1980

A sculptor, photographer, and designer based in Buenos Aires, Paiva works in bronze, clay, and photography to capture familiar yet uncanny forms, creating gilded and monumental sculptures from everyday objects that reflect on the passage of time and ancient rituals. Paiva’s hand sculpted works—whether cast from rocks, succulents, cacti, or even plastic garden chairs—have a provocative duality, appearing at once ordinary and otherworldly. Describing her sculptures as “ready-mades of nature gilded for profane adoration,” Paiva transforms overlooked artifacts of the everyday into objects worthy of reverence, imbuing them with a sense of both history and mystery

Paiva’s creative process is meticulous and physically demanding, beginning with clay or plaster models that are successively molded, cast in wax, and finally forged in bronze. This multi-stage approach allows her to “reproduce reality” in a medium that is both enduring and precious, a “permanent negative” that preserves fleeting forms. The works that emerge from this process are polished and often treated with patina, lending each sculpture a distinctive finish and texture that accentuates its transformation from the mundane to the monumental. Her totems and cast objects—garden chairs, plants, stones—transcend their everyday origins and take on a sculptural significance, bridging the gap between the sacred and the ordinary

Her sculptures, with their layered textures and profound simplicity, ask us to look closer, to question what we choose to enshrine, and to find meaning in the quiet, elemental forms that stand as witnesses to our existence. Through her work, Paiva also seeks to honor her diverse heritage, with roots in European and Latin American cultures, including Guaraní, Spanish, Scottish, and Polish ancestry, by offering a new narrative that invites us to consider our own origins and the shared threads of human experience

Born in Paris, Paiva studied Art History and Archaeology at La Sorbonne and film at NYU, grounding her practice in a deep understanding of cultural symbols across civilizations. Paiva’s pieces have been exhibited internationally, including in the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, and her work continues to resonate with audiences in Latin America, Europe, and the United States

 

Artist’s programs
Laboratorio de cine Di Tella-Rejtman UTDT 2011 and taller Eduardo Stupía UTDT 2016

Art fairs
Art Basel Miami Beach, PAD London, PAD Genève, PAD Paris, SP Arte Sao Paulo Art Fair, Miart Milano, ARCO Madrid, Buenos Aires Photo, ArteBA, Pinta New York, Pinta London,

SELECTED GROUP AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2008
NOVA FOTO ARGENTINA, MASP, SAO PAULO
CALIPSO, MIAU MIAU GALLERY, BUENOS AIRES

2010
VIDA DE DIVA , CCR, BUENOS AIRES
THE MAGIC CARPET, THE CRYPT GALLERY, LONDON
WOMEN ARTISTS, FRANKFURT ART FAIR

2011
ZOOM, MARLBOROUGH GALLERY, MADRID
ARTISTES PAR ARTISTES, MAISON ARGENTINE, PARIS
MACHETE: ANUARIO DE ARTISTAS CONTEMPORÁNEOS, MALBA, BUENOS AIRES

2012
PARAGUAY RAPÉ, CCR, BUENOS AIRES
NEW TENDENCIES, PERMANENT COLLECTION MAMBA MUSEO DE ARTE MODERNO DE BUENOS AIRES
PERFORMING THE BODY, I. KAMM GALLERY, ZURICH

2013
DIORAMA HUMBOLDT, ARTIST WINDOW, HERMÈS BUENOS AIRES
JUNGLE DIORAMA , CENTURION ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH

2014
LATIN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY, I. KAMM GALLERY, ZURICH
LUCK PLANT, LUCIANA BRITO GALLERY AT ESPASSO, NEW YORK

2015
CONO SUR, XIPPAS GALLERY, PDE
HERMETIC MEMORIES, SOLO SHOW AT SLY ZMUD GALLERY, BUENOS AIRES
HUMAN NATURE, CHAMBER GALLERY, NEW YORK

2016
MIX, XIPPAS GALLERY, PDE
ORIGEN FUTURO, SOLO SHOW AT GALERÍA NOGUERAS BLANCHARD, BARCELONA
UN DESIERTO EN EL JARDÍN, ARTIST WINDOW, HERMÈS BARCELONA

2017
TRANSFORMER, SOLO SHOW AT SLY ZMUD GALLERY, BUENOS AIRES
LUNA PAIVA, PALAU DE CASAVELLS, SPAIN

2018
DEMOCRACIA EN OBRA, CCK, BUENOS AIRES
AGAVE, PALAU DE CASAVELLS, SPAIN
VASES, VALERY DEMURE GALLERY, PAD LONDON
A MATTER OF TIME, FAENA FESTIVAL, ART BASEL MIAMI

2019
TOTEM, VALERY DEMURE GALLERY PAD GENÈVE
PLANTS, VALERY DEMURE GALLERY PAD PARIS
INCLUSIVE, EL GRAN VIDRIO, CÓRDOBA
A MATTER OF TIME, PLAZA SEEBER, SEMANA DEL ARTE BUENOS AIRES

BENEFIT AUCTIONS
SECOND MUESTRA Y SUBASTA AMIA DE ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO ARGENTINO, 2009
ASTA DI FOTOGRAFÍA CONTEMPORÁNEA 4a EDIZIONE MILÁN 2009
CHRISTIE’S ARSEP PARIS 2005
SUBASTA EMA ESCLEROSIS MULTIPLE ARGENTINA, 2012
ART TECHO MIAMI 2013
OUTER SEED SHADOW AUCTION, PADDLE8 NEW YORK 2014
REACHING U, NEW YORK, 2016
ANÓNIMO, PADDLE 8 / ART BASEL, MIAMI BEACH 2018
GERMINARE, BUENOS AIRES 2018

BOOKS
FICTIONS, ASUNTO IMPRESO 2008
MACHETE: CONTEMPORARY ART, ARTIST PORTRAITS, 2010
AMERICAN ABC, PARIPÉ BOOKS 2018

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