Daniel Lannes b. 1981

Daniel Lannes (Niterói, RJ, 1981) lives and works in São Paulo. The artist graduated in Social Communication from PUC-Rio (2006), and has a master's degree in Visual Languages from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2012). Painting since his childhood, Lannes started to dedicate himself professionally to artistic production in 2003, the year he began studying painting with Chico Cunha and João Magalhães at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, in Rio de Janeiro. At the same institution he also studied with Fernando Cocchiarale, Anna Bella Geiger, José Maria Dias da Cruz, Reynaldo Roels, and Viviane Matesco.

Lannes' painting focuses on the physical, cultural, and historical body, while the triad of sex, power, and violence is fundamental to his poetics. Working on the border between the figurative and the abstract, his compositions can bring a clear portrait of a historical figure, or diffuse stains that suggest an event to be completed by our imagination. His colorism, style, and composition, built with wide brushstrokes, constitute a production that demonstrates technical accuracy and experimental vigor to the same extent. According to Lannes, a successful painting is one in which the procedural accident and the narrative intention are interspersed in the construction of the image. The leitmotiv of his work is then revealed: to narrate, not to explain.

Daniel Lannes was the winner of the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize 2017/18, selected for the LIA - Leipzig International Art Programme 2016/17 artist residency, in Leipzig, Germany; and for the Sommer Frische Kunst 2015 residency, in Bad Gastein, Austria. In 2013, he was nominated for the 10th edition of the Cisneros-Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) Awards and Commissions Program. Twice he was nominated for the PIPA Prize, in 2011 and 2013.

Among his main exhibitions are the solo shows Jaula, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2022); A Luz do Fogo, Magic Beans Gallery, Berlin (2017); and the group shows Contramemória, Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2022); Male Nudes: a salon from 1800 to 2021, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2021); Perspectives on contemporary Brazilian Art, Art Berlin, Berlin (2018); and Höhenrausch, Eigen + Art Gallery, Berlin (2016). 

His works are part of several private and public collections, among them: Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Museu de Arte do Rio - MAR, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM Rio, Brazil; and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil.