Leda Catunda (São Paulo, 1961) graduated in Fine Arts from the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) college in São Paulo in 1984. She has since remained close to academia, teaching painting and drawing at FAAP, Santa Marcelina College, and in her own studio. In 2003 she received a doctoral degree in Fine Arts from the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo (ECA/USP) with the dissertation Poética da maciez: pinturas e objetos [The Poetics of Softness: Paintings and Objects], in which she presented a research begun in the early 1980s, exploring the boundaries between painting and the object through works with various stitched and painted fabrics. Noteworthy recent solo exhibitions include: I Love You Baby, Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo, 2016), for which she was awarded the Bravo! prize for Best Solo Exhibition of the Year; Pinturas Recentes [Recent Paintings], Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba, 2013) and MAM-Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 2013); and Leda Catunda: 1983-2008, a retrospective exhibition at the Pinacoteca Station (São Paulo, 2009). Catunda took part in four São Paulo Biennials (2018, 1994, 1985 and 1983), as well as in the Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre, 2001), and the Havana Biennial (Cuba, 1984). Over the years she participated in numerous group shows, including historical ones, such as Como Vai Você, Geração 80? [How Are You Doing, 80s Generation?]; Pintura como Meio [Painting as Medium], MAC-USP (São Paulo, 1983); and more recently: Past/Future/Present, Phoenix Museum of Art (Phoenix, USA, 2017); Histórias da Sexualidade [Sexuality Histories], Masp (São Paulo, 2017); and Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, Wexner Center for the Arts (Ohio, USA, 2014). Her work is present in several public collections among them the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, USA); the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands); the ARCO Foundation (Madrid, Spain); the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (Toyota, Japan); Instituto Inhotim (Brumadinho, Minas Gerais); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; MASP (São Paulo); MAM São Paulo; and MAM Rio de Janeiro.