Lucrezia Abatzoglu

Wrapped in deep, staining reds and soft, translucent fabrics, Lucrezia Abatzoglu’s work draws the viewer into a space where material, myth and the female body quietly meet. From her London studio, her Greek-Italian background shapes an intuitive engagement with Mediterranean histories and symbols, filtered through sensation rather than narrative. Recent exhibitions, from Soho Revue in London to her upcoming solo show The Milky Sisters Takes Flight at Modern Animals in Zurich, signal growing recognition of a practice defined by intimacy and restraint. Awarded the Ingram Collection Prize 2025, Abatzoglu works through a slow, ritualistic process, where fabrics seem to breathe and colour moves across the surface as something lived.

Portrait of Lucrezia Abatzoglu in her studio. Photo courtesy: Instagram: @camillero_

Through the characters she introduces, Lucrezia develops a highly personal visual language. Her figures emerge through feminine softness, tonal layering and intimate fragments, often rendered in vivid red hues that create a deeply sensorial experience. There is a quiet tension in her work: between vulnerability and strength, stillness and ecstasy. Rather than making overt political statements, she chooses subtlety, allowing meaning to unfold slowly through material and form.

Ritual sits at the core of Lucrezia’s practice. She creates a strong connection between ritual and image, reflecting her own way of constructing meaning through the female form. Symbolic elements such as veils, milk and drapery recur throughout her work, operating as gestures of offering rather than declaration. Her figures recall early Renaissance compositions, yet are subverted through softness, intimacy and a refusal of idealisation; this feminist approach ultimately resists resolution, mirroring the way she employs mythology as metaphor rather than narrative.

Portrait of Lucrezia Abatzoglu in her studio. Photo courtesy of the Artist

Materiality is central to this language. Lucrezia’s process is slow and deeply personal, rooted in her long-standing admiration for the colour red. As she states,

‘For me red, is more than just a colour, is a living mater—is ritual, layered and unstable; a bit like Dionysos himself, sensual, ambiguous, emotional and at times blinding.’

Red, in her work, is not applied but lived, staining, bleeding and shifting across the surface.

Her practice initially began with oil painting before gradually moving toward pigments: first synthetic, then increasingly traditional methods of colour-making. Today, she works with cochineal, a vivid red pigment originally used by the Aztecs in Mexico, later traded through the Renaissance and still employed in natural dyes. Ground by hand in her studio, the pigment’s origins produced from the dried bodies of female insects, deepen her exploration of the female form and its symbolic weight. This process connects to her on a personal level, allowing material, research and identity to merge.

Lucrezia Abatzoglu’s Artistic process. Courtesy of the Artist

Equally important is her use of fabric. Lucrezia paints on muslin and calico cotton, materials historically associated with domestic labour, care and protection. Muslin, used for centuries in processes such as cheese-making, carries ancient, maternal connotations, while calico evokes the provisional nature of pattern-making. These fabrics contribute to the sense of intimacy she seeks to create.

Installation View. Photo courtesy: Instagram: @camillero_

‘These fabrics are not just materials but for me they behave like skin. They absorb pigment, humidity and time, becoming active participants in the work rather than neutral supports.’

Installation View: Behind the Curtains, Soho Revue. Photo courtesy: Soho Revue

This sensitivity to surface and space was fully embodied in her recent exhibition Behind the Curtains at Soho Revue. Entering the exhibition, visitors were welcomed into a carefully curated, low-lit room enclosed by long red curtains draped across every wall. The immersive installation fully echoed the atmosphere of Lucrezia’s paintings. The contrast between the imposing red drapery and the small canvases scattered throughout the space invites viewers to step closer, encouraging a slow and intimate encounter with each work.

Behind the Curtains, Soho Revue, Photo: The Author

Narrative also plays a key role in her practice. As part of her research, she engages deeply with mythology and storytelling; each painting exists either as a character or as part of a wider narrative. Her story The Milky Sisters, inspired by The Bacchae by Euripides, gives life to a recurring body of work. The Milky Sisters are not fixed identities but presences, intended to resonate and establish an invisible dialogue with the viewer, one that requires full attention.

Lucretzia Abatzoglu, Moonlight Observations, 2025, Cochineal Pigment Watercolour on Muslim Cotton, 43 x 54 cm. Photo Credits: Instagram: @modernanimals_

There is an interplay between softness and power within these figures. Like nymphs or maenads from mythology, they possess a seductive quality, existing beyond social rules and moving instead through instinct and embodied knowledge. They do not perform; they linger. Their presence is built through layering and erasure, echoing her own process.

Lucrezia Abatzoglu’s Artistic process. Photo courtesy: Instagram: @camillero_

As she describes, ‘The figures I paint are layered presences formed through accumulation and erasure, much like the process of painting itself.’

Through this careful balance of material, myth and ritual, Lucrezia’s work resists clarity in favour of sensation. Her paintings ask to be experienced slowly, held in a space where softness, ecstasy and restraint coexist.

Lucretzia Abatzoglu, A Modest Mid Summer Offering, 2025, Pigment cochineal, watercolour, gouache, ink colour pencil, acrylic on recycled cotton paper, 10 x 7.5 cm. Courtesy: Instagram: @cartamagna.art

In December, Abatzoglu kindly created a portrait work for MADE IN BED’s Emerging Artist Editor, Natalia Makri.

Lucrezia Abatzoglu was a finalist for the Ingram Collection Prize 2025 with her work Drink and Know Yourself. She will present her first solo exhibition, The Milky Sisters Takes Flight, at Modern Animals, Zurich, from 12 February to 12 March 2026.

Stay up to date with her latest works on Instagram and her website.

Natalia Makri

Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED