LAMB is pleased to present the first UK solo exhibition of works on paper by Brazilian artist Maya Weishof (b. 1993, Curitiba). Bringing together a selection of recent drawings, the exhibition explores the intimate yet otherworldly visual worlds of the Curitiba-born artist, revealing the recurring themes and imagery that underpin her practice.
For Weishof, drawing is far more than a preparatory exercise. It is a fully autonomous medium, capable of exploring ideas with the same vivid intensity and chromatic richness as in her paintings. Throughout her practice, drawing serves as both a grounding framework and a site for experimentation. While her works on paper later inform her painting practice, her drawings exist as fully realised, self-contained worlds. Figures overlap, bodies merge, and many of her drawings project tiny vignettes across the page, allowing the viewer to enter multiple realities simultaneously. Weishof crafts spaces where art historical references, myths, and personal memory coexist on a single surface. Each piece embodies a freedom in this fluidity, both thematically and materially, giving rise to complex, non-linear narratives.
Through their materials, the drawings are as layered as their subject matter. Marks of crayon and graphite overlap with traces of oil paint lifted directly from her palette, visible in fingerprints, smudges, and residual colour from works in progress, attesting to her dynamic practice. In her studio, surrounded by art historical texts and an array of visual references, Weishof draws inspiration from archives and sources as varied as Japanese prints and Baroque paintings, as well as images drawn after friends. These fragments of historical sources and everyday life meet in her drawings, forming compositions that hover between the real and the imagined, or the familiar and the fantastical.
Many works on display in the exhibition point to Weishof’s interest in capturing expressions of desire and intimacy, a theme amplified by the medium and the viewer’s glimpse into the artist’s practice and studio. Depictions of bedrooms dissolve into apocalyptic landscapes, and moments of desire and connection unfold against a cosmic setting that is neither day nor night. Among the anonymous, intertwined bodies, many directly mimic the scenes of shunga, Japanese erotic woodblock prints, as seen in From the Pillow Pictures series (2025). In another reference to historical images of desire, Weishof reimagines Diego Velázquez’s The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’), where the goddess of love’s reflection is blurred. In her drawing, Weishof gives form and visibility to the figure through her own visual language.
Weishof’s drawings often function like collages or sequences of snapshots, layering moments within a single frame. This approach allows viewers to enter her personal spaces, depicting friends in her studio or offering a glimpse of a painting in progress, as seen in the diptych The Studio (2025). A work that captures the essence of her drawing practice is Dream in 3 times (2024), in which three distinct narrative paths live within a single composition. Images accumulate in a rhythm reminiscent of a manuscript or comic book, bringing together multiple spaces, figures, and narratives within a single frame.
Maya Weishof (b. 1993, Curitiba, Brazil) lives and works in São Paulo. She graduated with a BA in Visual Arts from Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) in 2016. Recent solo shows iclude: O último dia do século, Millan, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); Fever Nights, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France (2022); Headless: Maya Weishof, Kupfer, London, UK (2021); Primeiros Sóis, Auroras, São Paulo, Brazil (2020); Os substitutos, Boiler Galeria, Curitiba, Brazil (2019). Weishof participated in the 14 Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2025), and in the group exhibitions Summer Fling, L.U.P.O., Milan, Italy (2024); Apéritif [ape itif], Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2024); Antes e agora, longe e aqui dentro, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil (2024); Arte Atual - Por muito tempo acreditei ter sonhado que era livre, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil (2022); Female Voices of Latin America, MADC, Costa Rica (2021); Electric Dreams, Nara Roesler, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2021); Contigere, Cisterna Galeria, Lisbon, Portugal; Monster High, Olhão, São Paulo, 2020; Estamos Aqui!, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil (2019); and A Vastidão dos Mapas, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil (2017). Weishof’s work is part of important institutional and private collections in Brazil and abroad, including: Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil; and Rennie Museum Collection, Canada.