LUCILA GRADÍN
Over the past decade, the artist Lucila Gradín (Bariloche, 1981) has collaborated with homeopaths, healers, philosophers, and women farmers to recover forms of knowledge that recognize plants as teachers and guides. A turning point in her practice came when she discovered that every medicinal plant is also dye-producing, a finding that led her to understand the color that emanates from them as an expansive wave of healing.
Bio
Lucila’s working methodology subverts the narratives of Western painting—the discipline in which she was trained—where plant life has historically been reduced to a decorative or secondary motif. Instead, the artist activates the chromatic metabolism of plants, allowing them to “paint.” In her studio, closer to a kitchen than a laboratory, she boils roots, macerates leaves, and cooks fibers in a process she describes as a “body-to-body” encounter with plants. Chinchamale: The Community of Plants emerged from a journey to the community of K’acllaraccay, in the highlands of Moray (Cusco), where Lucila participated, together with the collective Las Warmi, in a process of reciprocal learning about the medicinal species of the Andean corridor. Among them, the chinchamale—used to regulate blood flow—was the one that most deeply resonated with her, as it is a species that only thrives in coexistence with others. This condition of biological interdependence became, for the artist, a starting point to rethink political organization through care and reciprocity.
Lucila Gradín was born in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, in 1981. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts from the National University of the Arts (Universidad Nacional de las Artes). In 2011, she was awarded a fellowship by CIA – Center for Artistic Research. For the past ten years, she has been developing a medicinal and dye-plant herbarium in collaboration with healers, physicians, philosophers, biologists, and others. She is currently developing a long-term project entitled Abya Yala, The Continent of Plants. She lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 2026, she received an honorable mention from ARTHAUS for her project Cocolle Rosa. In 2024, she participated in the Forest Festival of the Arts Biennale in Okayama, Japan, and in the 15th Havana Biennial, The Paths of Silk.
Her selected solo exhibitions include: Chinchamale, the Community of Plants, ICPNA, Miraflores, Lima, Peru (2025); Plant Genealogy, Galería COTT, Buenos Aires (2024); Native Cosmogony, MARCO Museum, Buenos Aires (2023); Mburucuyá, Smol, Buenos Aires (2023); The Color of a Garden, Dye Herbarium, Proa21, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires (2022); Plant Chromatology, Summer Solstice, Centro Cultural San Martín, Buenos Aires (2022); Indigofera tinctoria, Galería El Mirador, Buenos Aires (2019); The Contemplation of Seeds, FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil (2015); Biosphere, site-specific installation at FNA, Buenos Aires (2015); The Cosmogony of the Bean, Galería Foster Catena, Buenos Aires (2014); Houses for Catastrophes, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires (2011); Floating Word Flowers, Steamboat, Colorado, USA (2006); and Magnolia, Galería Proyecto A, Buenos Aires (2005).
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Argentina and abroad. Her residency programs include: Artistic Residencies of the Secretariat of Cultural Heritage at Los Alerces National Park, Argentina (2022); PROA21, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2022); La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2018); FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil (2015); El Ranchito, Matadero, Madrid, Spain (2014); and Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, USA (2013).
She received the Oxenford Grant in 2020 and several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (FNA) in 2019, 2016, 2011, and 2009. She also participated in BIENALSUR (2021 and 2017) and the Drawing Biennial (2021 and 2019).
Her works are part of public and private collections in Argentina and abroad.
Together with Andrés Pasinovich, she founded Marabunta, a program fostering exchanges between local artists and Latin American curators, including Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico), Moacir dos Anjos (Brazil), Sol Henaro (Mexico), Miguel López (Peru), Helena Chávez Mac Gregor (Mexico), Agustín Pérez Rubio (Spain), and Itzel Vargas (Mexico), among others.
Alongside Fernanda Vilella, she co-directed A.L.A. – Artists in Latin America, an artists’ collective that organized several residency programs: Fundación Cine Nómada para las Artes, Sorojchi Tambo, La Paz, Bolivia (2014); Residencia Taller 7, Medellín, Colombia (2012); Los Nuevos Sensibles, Vicente Vargas Estudio, Valparaíso, Chile (2011); and Barracão Maravilha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2010).
