Lupe Cunha originates from Brazil from where her colours are inspired.  She started her artistic life over 40 years ago - first in Chicago where she started her art studies and was inspired by the Abstract Expressionists. When she settled in the UK in 1981, Lupe found that artists like Peter Lanyon and John Hoyland added a new dimension to her work while our milder weather served to cool her colours down and added the contrast and expressive mark-making of her present style. Here, she completed her BA and then MA in Art at the University of Hertfordshire and then a Certificate of Education at the University of Greenwich. She has taught for 20 years and continues to do so at Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, where she has her studio.

In the last year, she has primarily returned to the pure Abstraction of her youth. Like Kandinsky before her, she associates the movements of her paintings to instrumental music. In this she is possibly influenced by her new musician husband as she now riffs in her abstract painting as he does on the guitar. Abstract art to her is like the improvisations of music, explored, developed and  fine-tuned until it clearly expresses the variations of her thoughts and emotions. She welcomes the freedom provided by abandoning the constraints of subject matter as recommended by Patrick Heron.

Using colour, mark-making and value to provide her with the music sheet on which to build her compositions, allows her to more clearly explore the many nuances of the inspiration for each of her pieces of work.  Lupe Cunha lives in Sudbury and is part of Suffolk Open Studios as well.