In her installations, Lucia Nogueira uses everyday objects to which she imparts a sense of malignity and magic. With an eye for the fragmentary and a gift for combining very different materials, in her work she is capable of re-signifying the most anodyne commonplace objects, such as chairs, cabinets, plastic shopping bags and buckets. She plays with the scale of the pieces and the presence of the viewer, who is invited to enter the sculptural space in a very physical way. Far from a strictly Minimalist aesthetic, her installations are constructed as a sensory exploration of concepts such as tension, weight, vulnerability, stasis, visibility and concealment. The artist approaches Minimalism through an understanding of materials and the location of sculpture in space, showing affinities with Arte Povera and with female predecessors such as Eva Hesse, Lygia Clark and Louise Bourgeois.

Regarding her relationship to found objects, the artist explains: ‘My way of thinking is very much from Brazil: my way of picking up objects comes from there too. It is something connected with childhood and also with the Brazilian psyche. Our way of thinking is not as linear as it is in Europe... In art you obviously have a background in art history. We don't have that in Brazil at all. I think the way we developed our visual sense is different from the European model. I didn't have that. We just do everything in a very empirical way, even art.’

Referring to her ability to generate new narratives with everyday materials and objects, she adds: ‘I sometimes think that my work is all about gaps. You have a linear routine in your life that carries on, and then suddenly something happens and it breaks the line. I think my work is very much connected with what happens when the line is fractured.’