The Open Studio presentation of works-in-progress by artist Luia Corsini from Mexico City, showcases the ongoing works that Corsini has created during her artist residency in Berlin with LAGOS @ MOMENTUM AiR.

Prior to her Berlin artist residency, Luia Corsini developed a series of works in Mexico City entitled “The Grid”. In this series, Corsini created large-scale abstract paintings based on the colour palettes and architecture of iconic buildings in Mexico City by groundbreaking modernist architects such as Luis Barragan, Ricardo Legorreta, and Mathias Goeritz. In her Open Studio, Corsini will be presenting her book of the Mexico City series as well as new paintings inspired by the modernist architecture of Berlin, focusing especially on iconic buildings by Mies van der Rohe, specifically: the Neue National Galerie, the Kiosk and Haus Lemke.

I am an Italian-American artist, born in NYC, then moved to Rome, Italy, when I was eight. Growing up in Europe gave me an appreciation for beauty and culture. It wasn’t until I left for boarding school at the age of sixteen, where I started my art practice and fell in love with creating.

My work is called “the grid”, a geometric sequence that explores narratives and techniques through shape and color. A journey of six plus years, evolving with my curiosity of my surroundings, environments and cultures. “The grid” is an extension of myself, my story and visions. First discovered in New York City, while attending university at NYU. I was exploring tape techniques on a canvas, pursuing perfection of geometric shapes, and accidentally created a sequence. This sequence became an exploration of a narrative through color and shape.

The curiosity of my surroundings, environments and culture are what feed my practice. Since I started painting my grid, the correlation I saw after living in New York City, Barcelona and Los Angeles, told me that I naturally am influenced by culture and my environment. This is because when I first started my grid, I was painting intuitively without a theme in mind, as the years past is when I noticed a pattern in my work. I moved to Mexico City because I was intrigued by their unique style in architecture, the colors and use of natural light that I saw in many of the iconic houses designed by respected architects such as Luis Barragan, Ricardo Legorreta, Juan O’Gorman and Mathias Goeritz, were similar and influenced by one another. Hence I consciously decided to research all the houses designed by these architects and create a series inspired by them. After living in Mexico City for three years, I am now changing mediums and focusing on a more natural approach to painting, where I use local plants and insects as a form of paint on canvas. My goal is to only use the local plants and insects as a form of paint and natural dye to create an architectural inspired series, from the cities I visit.