SALA Artist - Lucie Davison

Artist profile

Lucie was forced to retire in 2016 when she was diagnosed with ME/CFS. Despite this extreme limitation on her life, she still manages to research and edit books for the publishing company she jointly owns with Rob Gray, Only Slightly Foxed Publications, as well as creating and exhibiting fine art collages.
While having a chronic illness does not define Lucie’s art practice, it "meant I really had to examine what was important to me and focus on those priorities", which entailed a shift in her art practice from plein air watercolour landscapes and large, abstract acrylic paintings to collage. This was quite a journey. While Lucie still loves the planned, yet serendipitous nature of watercolours, she has learned to embrace the same factors in analog collage.

Exhibitions and Collections:
2021 South Australian Living Artists
2021 Coral Street Artspace, Victor Harbor, South Australia
2022 Mindscape, Adelaide, South Adelaide
2022 Port Elliot Show, South Australia
2023 South Australian Living Artists
2023 Gallery M, Adelaide, South Australia

Lucie’s works are represented in collections in Australia, New Zealand and Scotland.

Gallery

Click on the images to open the gallery, click again to zoom in.

Artist Comments

Inner world: The figure in Inner World is, like many ME/CFS sufferers, visible from within her room, but invisible to the world beyond her window.

Not the Way Home: The female figure in Inner World demonstrates the despair often felt by ME/CFS sufferers, and how freedom, like the butterflies, sometimes taunts them.

Soul

Trapped: The central figure represents the feeling of being imprisoned, able to see the world beyond, but unable to go there, which is common amongst ME/CFS sufferers.

Beyond: This figure represents the cold, grey isolation many ME/CFS sufferers feel.

Description of the artwork 

Inner world: A surreal image of a woman sitting on sill of a tall, single-hung window, head down, hands clasped to her knees. Also, on the windowsill sits a statuette, reflecting her posture. Outside the window is a street with cars, with tall building on either side. The image is black and white, but for a green curtain which passes behind the woman, and the fact that her head, legs and lower arms are a featureless green.

Not the Way Home: A surreal image of a naked woman kneeling, in an attitude of despair, on an octopus resting on stony ground while a clothed man kneels on green grass and sketches on a drawing board.

Soul: A surreal image of an androgynous, head and shoulders figure, blind, carved from white stone and patterned with black branches and leaves. Behind the figure is a set of mossy, stone steps rising to a circular arch, with a misty view through it. The steps are framed by dark, rainforest ferns and trees, with a number of bright birds, with blue, white, red, orange and mauve plumage, on the upper left side.

Trapped: A surreal image of a man trapped, as if encased in an ice cube, in the centre of dark grey walls, with windows and openings revealing a bright blue sky beyond. An eagle soars in the sky on the lower left of the image.

Beyond:  A surreal image of a woman standing against a translucent white wall divided into panels by dark grey strips. The shadows of leaves are visible on the wall. She stands on the right of a grey, metallic floor on which curves upwards to the left of the image and is divided by ankle high ridges. She is dressed in a long, pale blue dress, with a dark, full-length cloak over her shoulders. She is holding an open book and looking away from an open window in the wall, which reveals a bright green corridor leading to another window showing a sunny, open scene. A blue, featureless shadow of the woman is on the wall to the left of the woman.

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