Louisa Gagliardi’s paintings exist as reflections: internally, of artist and viewer, and of the rapid acceleration of technology in our visualised and socialised worlds. Their liminal status — at once digitally rendered images and physically assertive objects — speaks as much to contemporary concerns of self-mediated personas as it does to the compositions and narrative structures of art-historical painting.
Working with a process that moves fluidly between screen and surface, Gagliardi explores how identity, desire and perception are shaped within increasingly immaterial visual environments. Her figures and spaces appear suspended in a state between apparition and embodiment, echoing the ways digital images both reveal and obscure the world they depict. Through this interplay of illusion, texture and atmosphere, her works invite viewers to consider their own roles as observers, participants and projected selves within a culture of constant visual self-construction.
Gagliardi studied Graphic Design at ECAL, graduating in 2012, and has since exhibited widely, including solo presentations at Galerie Eva Presenhuber (Zürich, Vienna, Seoul), CC Strombeek (Brussels), Antenna Space (Shanghai) and MOSTYN (Wales). Her work has been shown in numerous international group exhibitions, among them Kunsthalle Zürich, the Swiss Institute (New York), the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), the National Gallery Prague and the Aargauer Kunsthaus.
She is the recipient of several awards, including the Distinction Jacqueline Oyex (2025), the Swiss Art Awards (2020) and the Prix culturel de la Ville de Sion (2019). Her practice has been the subject of two monographs and supported by residencies at Fondation Fiminco (Paris), Nordisk Kunstnarsenter Dale (Norway), and Fondation Suisse (Paris).
Gagliardi lives and works in Zurich.