Lucas Biagini (b. 1996) is a Toronto-based painter whose work is driven by material process, surface, and the physical presence of paint. He received his BFA from OCAD University in 2018. Working primarily with oil, wax, and self-developed mixtures, Biagini treats painting as both image and object. He builds, cuts, and works the surface so that each painting carries the trace of its own making, often evoking skin, terrain, or shifting internal landscapes.
Central to Biagini’s practice are two ongoing bodies of work, Thick Skin and Tilling, which emerged from a paint mixture he developed through years of experimentation. This oil- and clay-like material allows him to shape, carve, and rework the surface in direct response to the resistance, weight, and behaviour of the paint, producing surfaces that feel both constructed and discovered.
His Tilling series grew from this process. What began as a way to reuse leftover paint evolved into an investigation of surface, repetition, and transformation. Layers are pressed, sliced, and folded back into themselves, creating dense compositions that often suggest landscapes or bodies without becoming illustrative.
Biagini’s work is informed by artists such as Jack Whitten, Mark Grotjahn, Jasper Johns, Charline von Heyl, Thornton Dial, and Chris Martin, as well as ancient craft traditions and movements such as Dansaekhwa. His recent work moves toward greater structural clarity and specificity, balancing abstraction with forms that feel grounded, bodily, and emotionally charged.
Biagini has exhibited nationally and internationally, with works held in private collections across North America and Europe. He lives and works in Toronto.