Lize Bartelli is a figurative painter exploring a richly layered female universe. Her work often includes nudity and centers the female body, but it is equally driven by fragments, symbols, and gestures that suggest emotional depth, desire, and autonomy. At once sensuous and cerebral, her paintings investigate the performance of femininity, its codes, contradictions, and cultural imprints.

Guided by deep visual research and colour theory, Bartelli uses colour not to define identity but to conjure feeling, tension, and resonance. Influenced by artists like Suzan Frecon and Josef Albers, she approaches colour as a language of intuition and intensity.

At the heart of her practice is an ongoing question: what is truly ours, and what has been placed upon us? Her paintings navigate this tension between essence and expectation, inviting viewers into a space where femininity is both staged and sincere, playful and profound.

Bio

Lize Bartelli (b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; lives and works in London) is a painter whose practice is rooted in colour theory and an exploration of feminine identity. Her visual language draws from her academic background in Philosophy at PUC-Rio (2008–2012) and Performance Art at CAL, Rio de Janeiro. She later studied Design at Istituto Marangoni in Milan (2012–2013) and Art History at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London (2016–2017). Bartelli committed to painting professionally in 2020.

Her work has been featured in Veja São Paulo by Humberto Addo (2022), Architectural Digest by Kathryn Romeyn (2020), Les Nouveaux Riches Magazine by Daniel Lichterwald (2020), Elle Decor (2020), FAD Magazine by Lee Sherrock (2025), Forbes Brasil by Paula Bezerra de Mello (2025), and Vogue Brasil (2025).

Recent solo exhibitions include Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me, Roman Road, London (2025), curated by Marisa Bellani; Skeleton’s Closet, Simões de Assis, São Paulo (2022), curated by Julia Lima. Group show Mothering, Kupfer Project, London (2022), curated by Penelope Kupfer. She has also participated in international art fairs such as SP–Arte, São Paulo (2022), and Zonamaco, Mexico City (2024).