Angle of an Entrance

The starting point for the series came from looking through photos taken while Sidonio was living in France for a year. Watching people huddling under umbrellas on a rainy street in Paris, Sidonio was drawn to the array of differing umbrellas and the way that people formed groups to take shelter under them. The large work Cuevrefeu (Old French spelling for “cover fire”) was taken from a cropping of one of these images. The work is anchored by the umbrella, stretching from one side of the canvas to the other, playing with the limitations of the picture plane so the figures are enclosed both in a narrative and a pictorial sense. In a similar way, Eclipse is an exploration of the movement of moths. They fly freely, yet are trapped by the very light that draws them. They often move in circles, similar to a fish in a bowl, which was the study behind Some Fortune. Often drawn to these close-ups and snapshots, Sidonio draws attention to the small details of the everyday that are so easily overlooked. 

There is an intimacy to Lucia Sidonio's paintings that begins with the way she frames her subjects. Tightly cropped, her compositions press the viewer close to the scene, as though we have stepped inside the enclosure with them. The picture plane becomes a boundary the subjects cannot cross and the viewer is quietly invited to share.

Where her last exhibition leaned towards cool, these works glow with warmth. Browns, greens, and ochres ground the series in the earth, mirroring the natural imagery that runs through it. For Sidonio, oil paint is a medium with its own vitality, and a painting should live independently of its maker. She embraces pentimenti, allowing the layers, revisions, and physical buildup of the work to surface in the final image. Delicate mark making rewards slow looking, and imagery that hovers between representation and abstraction asks the viewer to complete what is only partly described. The result is a private, contemplative experience. 

Lucia Sidonio believes that paintings work best when they invite prolonged looking, rewarding you whether you stand back or step up close, making the gallery space at McLeavey a fitting space for these quiet, intimate works.