Lucia Laguna, the Brazilian painter whose semi-abstract canvases drew on the lush hills above Rio de Janeiro where she lived, has died there at the age of 85, according to her gallery, Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel.

The São Paulo gallery said it closed for the day yesterday to honor the memories of Laguna and another artist on its roster, Rodrigo Cass, who recently died in a beach accident.

"Throughout her career, Lucia developed a body of work defined by her engagement with landscape, memory, and everyday life," the gallery said in a statement. "Her work, at once intimate and open to the world, occupies a fundamental place in contemporary Brazilian art."

A former language teacher, Laguna built a fractured and overlapping lexicon of dense, brightly colorful paintings from her surroundings and her experience with language. She was known for a collaborative creative process — a "pictorial dialogue" — in which studio assistants and students painted a first layer around a theme, and she replied by accumulating, painting over or erasing layers of pigment beneath.

Her works cluster into well-known series: "Jardim" (Garden), "Paisagem" (Landscape), "Estúdio" (Studio), and "Azulejo" (Tiles). The paintings combine interior and exterior figurative imagery — tropical foliage, vibrant cityscapes — that can appear torn and fragmented, with geometric forms almost colliding with organic counterparts. "Laguna's paintings come across sometimes as expressive and full of energy, sometimes as light and free flowing, and nearly always seem pervaded by atmospheric light," noted Karsten Greve, one of her European galleries.

Laguna framed her practice as an argument against visual overload. "I believe that painting can recover a time for gazing that has been lost in the chaos of images that bombard our cities," she said in 2008, according to Economia da Pintura by Paulo Herkenhoff. "The slowness, the introspection that painting entails pleases me, asking me to translate reality according to this lost perspective."

Born in Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil, in 1941, Laguna spent years working as a language and literature teacher before enrolling, at around age 54, in Rio de Janeiro's Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in 1995. There she studied under Charles Watson. By 1998 she had her first solo exhibition at Rio's Cândido Mendes Cultural Centre.

A major turning point came with her participation in the 30th São Paulo Biennale in 2012. Her works entered the collections of major museums in Brazil, and she exhibited internationally, from the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. She won several awards, including Brazil's prestigious PIPA Prize.

Laguna is survived by her daughter, Laura, and her grandchildren, João and Daniel. Her death, coming just after that of Rodrigo Cass, leaves Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel mourning two artists from its roster within a short span.