Juanita Lanzo: Formas Feroces y Tiernas (Fierce and Tender Forms)
Juanita Lanzo creates biomorphic worlds that chart the movements of unseen forces and reflect on the unpredictable and often fragile nature of human existence. Her works on paper are translucent, cerebral, and intricately layered. They draw from anatomical, microscopic, and other organic forms to create imagery that evokes intimacy and reproduction, death and decay, pain and pleasure, and the complex processes of healing. Lanzo’s drawings show us ruptures, flows, and connections within our inner lives. She makes the invisible visible, tracing what shapes our physical, psychological, and metaphysical experience.
Lanzo draws intuitively, much like automatic writing (a technique in which writing is produced without conscious intention). She lets lines form and connect, allowing dense, organic shapes to appear. She explores an inner landscape that feels both celestial and biological, and the journey that emerges becomes terrain for the viewer to explore. The eye follows channels and freeways. Lanzo’s shapes challenge easy explanations, pushing viewers to question and reflect. She invites curiosity while also revealing our limits. Her drawings expose the assumptions and insecurities we carry, encouraging us to reconsider how we see ourselves and others.
Lanzo draws on the literary works of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the Puerto Rican poets Julia de Burgos and Ángelamaría Dávila, all of whom engage with the body as contested terrain shaped by power and capable of reclamation. In Frankenstein, the creature’s body is a site for control, authorship, and humanity. In contrast, de Burgos and Dávila reject socially imposed definitions of the body that are shaped by patriarchy, colonialism, and gendered expectations. Their poetry reclaims the body’s autonomy—where identity, desire, and resistance meet. Drawing inspiration from these literary approaches, Lanzo’s drawings, like poetry, are cerebral and ambiguous. They feel familiar but resist instant resolution.
Lanzo is interested in how stories inhabit the body—the personal and collective experiences embedded in who we are. Her drawings serve as meditations on memory, vulnerability, and the lingering imprint of violence, inviting us to look beneath the surface not only of her intricate forms, but of ourselves. By mapping the often invisible histories that shape us, Lanzo opens a space for understanding, healing, and transformation, reminding us that even in fragility, there is the potential for reclamation and renewal.
— David Rios Ferreira, curator
At the core of my practice is the act of drawing. I work mostly on paper, with an approach that is poetic rather than figurative, imaginary rather than observed. I draw intuitively, conjuring fictionalized inner spaces where vegetation and anatomical forms intertwine—worlds in which human interactions, life cycles, and biomorphic forces coexist and breathe.
The organic structures of Formas Feroces y Tiernas (Fierce and Tender Forms) are intimate and gentle, as well as evocative and wild. Through color, line, and shape, I construct poetic settings that speak to our shared humanity: mortality, love, pleasure, desire, and joy.
— Juanita Lanzo
Generous support for this exhibition and related events
is provided by The Onda Foundation
ABOUT THE CURATOR
David Rios Ferreira is a visual artist and independent curator with over 20 years of experience in the arts and culture sector. He has developed award-winning programs that nurture the next generation of creative professionals, including in his current role as director of the Young Learners program at The Museum of Modern Art. His curatorial work amplifies underrepresented narratives, providing a platform for voices, stories, and histories often overlooked in mainstream art discourse. He collaborates with artists who challenge preconceived notions of contemporary art and explore how diverse artistic practices and processes shape and transform the American imagination. His work aims to create space for new and imaginative ideas, approaches, and solutions that deepen our understanding of identity formation and development.
Rios Ferreira’s contributions to the museum field have been recognized through awards such as the Smithsonian Education Award, the Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship from the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, and the Education Committee Award for Excellence in Practice from the American Alliance of Museums. In 2020, Rios Ferreira was named one of the curators for Virtual NYC Curator Collections, a collaboration between N.Y.C. & Company, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Juanita Lanzo is an Afro-Puerto Rican visual artist, educator, art consultant, and independent curator based in East Harlem and The Bronx. Her biomorphic imagery alludes to life cycles and reflects on body politics, gender identity, desire, racism, memory, the Caribbean and African diasporic identity, and post-colonialism.
Lanzo graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a BFA in printmaking and drawing and from City College of New York with an MFA in printmaking and drawing/painting.
RELATED EVENTS
July 11, Saturday, 5 p.m. — Opening of New Exhibits
September 26, Saturday, 2-4 p.m. — Workshop: Exploring Your Inner Landscapes
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