Artist Lusmerlin (styled as LUSMERLIN) Lantigua’s art is a full-body experience. Often using her own body as a reference and source of inspiration, LUSMERLIN’s pastel pieces and acrylic paintings use abstractions of the human body to instill a sense of movement and “controlled chaos” in the viewer.
“If you see me in the studio, you can often find me dancing and moving my arms, using the movement to plan out compositions,” LUSMERLIN explains.
Her bold paintings and performance art have earned her acclaim and exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, LUSMERLIN was a semifinalist for the prestigious Jane & Walter Sondheim Art Prize, with her work displayed at the Peale Museum in Baltimore as part of the semifinalist show.
While she now splits her time between Baltimore and Philadelphia, LUSMERLIN was born and raised in the Dominican Republic in an area north of its capital, Santo Domingo. She grew up with a passion for the performing arts, particularly traditional dancing, But access to arts education was fairly limited in her hometown.
A trip she took to Spain at age 15 proved particularly impactful for her, as it was one of the first times she was able to experience the works of some of the world’s most famous artists.
“All I wanted to do was to go to the museums,” she recalls. “I saw Picasso for the first time; I saw Velázquez for the first time. I didn’t even know what contemporary art was, so that experience really touched me.”
LUSMERLIN did not immediately pursue visual art, though. She published books of short stories and poems in Spanish, garnering national acclaim. She notes that she’s largely left her literary work behind, though.
“When I came to the United States and changed languages, my relationship with language changed, and I could no longer access the poetry that was so natural to me,” Lantigua says.
After she came to the U.S., LUSMERLIN spent several years working as a chemical engineer with a focus on cement and textile manufacturing. She eventually became the manager of a cement plant in New Jersey.
She first started art as a hobby after buying a watercolor set at a discount store on a whim. As she grew dissatisfied with her work as an engineer, she turned to art more and more until she left her management job and became a full-time artist.
But the skills she gained as an engineer still come in handy for her art. LUSMERLIN often makes her own textiles, creating canvases from scratch.
“Both art and manufacturing have heavily technical needs and complications,” she explains. “Creativity is a tool that exists across all areas. You just use different tools and different languages.”
LUSMERLIN’s work is heavily influenced by her mixed African, Arab and Indigenous heritage and upbringing in the Dominican Republic, particularly its nature and folklore.
Many of her pieces also explore the complexities of womanhood and the role women play in society.
“The Uncatchable Ciguapa,” her 2024 exhibit at Nuestras Raices in Baltimore, combined all of these ideas.
The ciguapa is a creature from Dominican folklore that appears as a beautiful woman with long hair and backwards feet who lures men to the woods and kills them. Lantigua wanted to create art that focused on the ciguapa outside of her relationships with men.
“I wanted to create a world where she lives, and the stories not only of men hunting her, but of her friends and baby ciguapas,” she recalls. “Something really important about the ciguapa is that you can’t catch her. If you catch her, she dies. She doesn’t survive in captivity; she has to be free.”
She also pulled from her own experiences when creating “The Uncatchable Ciguapa,” utilizing both her fond memories of the Dominican Republic and some of the struggles she still faces.
“I’m obsessed with hair, since I have a lot,” LUSMERLIN says. “I have many stories around my hair — good stories, bad stories, people who love my hair and people who have tried to fire me for my hair. So I started doing all of these pieces with hair and performances wrapped in hair.”
LUSMERLIN is also a performance artist, and her pieces often convey a sense of motion inspired by her own experience with dance. But performance has never been her main focus as an artist.
“Performances are not truly my end product,” she adds. “I’m not trying to do performances as my ultimate art form. They’re a way I get to specific emotions and experiences, and a way to better understand myself.”
LUSMERLIN is frequently involved with nonprofit organizations, and some of her pieces have been sold or auctioned off with all of the profits going to charity. She’s also helped organize the Hispanic Heritage Festival in Columbia.
Currently, LUSMERLIN is preparing for a solo exhibition at Howard Community College in January 2026. One of the most notable pieces that will be displayed there is “Big Bang Baby,” which she completed during a recent residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
“She’s creating the whole world that’s coming out of her hands,” she says of the piece. “Because she’s awesome like that. It shows the fantastic power of women.”
