between the discipline of a strict school, and the warm carefree days of coffee plantations. Her compositions use intricate work to reconcile the tension between pairs of opposites (agony and sublimation, vulnerability and power, black and white).
Cano’s semi-abstract work is influenced by a childhood lived between a city at war (Medellin) and the magic vitality of her grandmother’s farm;
Cano’s semi-abstract work is influenced by a childhood lived between a city at war (Medellin) and the magic vitality of her grandmother’s farm;
between the discipline of a strict school, and the warm carefree days of coffee plantations. Her compositions use intricate work to reconcile the tension between pairs of opposites (agony and sublimation, vulnerability and power, black and white).
ANA LUCIA CANO
(b. 1980, Quindío, Colombia)
Cano’s visual language is deeply rooted in her personal history and upbringing. A childhood split between a city at war, Medellín, and the magical vitality of her grandmother’s farm; between the discipline of a strict school and the warm, carefree days among coffee plantations.
After a successful career as an architect and a series of intimate breakthroughs, painting became both an avenue for self-expression and a way to reconcile with the solitude of her early years. Through psychoanalysis, she surfaced powerful narratives, stories that insisted on being told, both in images and in words. Cano is a storyteller at heart.
Her work draws from the emotional riddles of life and the belief that beauty emerges from contradiction. Each project is not only a close testament to her history but also a call for others to awaken the power of their imagination.
Ana often experiments with multiple media, creating bold blocks of black and white, delicate figures against sweeping backgrounds, vibrant textures, and nuanced color fields. She begins with intuitive wireframe sketches that serve as both a map and a narrative outline. Vigour emerges within each work from the coexistence of geometric structures with organic forms. Patterns, gestural lines, and subtle washes are built up over time, allowing details to emerge while maintaining a strong compositional foundation.
Looking at her pieces is an immersive experience. The semi-abstract work, graphic and poetic, pulses with movement and emotion. She blends the precision of architectural draftsmanship with the freedom of intuitive mark-making. Figures that both haunt and dance, animals and shapes rendered in bittersweet gestures, invite the viewer to look closer, to journey into her inner world, and to discover new meanings each time.
Her paintings are among private collections in England, India, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States:
· In 2017 - Awarded first prize in the Annual Viridian Artists Juried Exhibition.
· In 2018 - Completed a site-specific commissioned mural (30m2) for the Gurgaon's Grand Hyatt.
· In 2021 - Received an award at the London Art Biennale.
· In 2022 - Selected to exhibit at Gagliardi gallery in London.
· In 2023 - Solo show at Noho House Gallery (Barcelona).
Ana Lucia Cano’s exhibition was available between the 9th and 30th of March, 2023
Practical answers to impossible questions
The “Practical Answers to Impossible Questions” project started in 2018 as an imaginary conversation between the artist and her soon-to-be-born son. He would ask impossible questions and she would respond with practical, simple answers. Whereas the questions are abstract, serious, philosophical, transcendental, and timeless; the answers are specific, colorful, and quotidian. The questions are meant to be universal and absolute, while the answers are anecdotal. In most cases the answers resonate with feelings and characters that influenced Cano’s life and artwork.
The original “Practical Answers to Impossible Questions” is a compilation of fifteen ideas, which became the point of departure for this exhibition. The artworks presented here can be seen as a kind of itinerary of answers to some of these immutable questions.