13 - 17 August 2014
about the exhibition
Lucienne Rickard is a talented emerging artist from Hobart whose work is marked by a sharp eye for detail, zealous imagination and a fastidious, almost obsessive, mode of execution. Having focused previously on the plumage of Tasmanian birds, native flora and the richly decorated traditional uniforms of the Prussian military, Lucienne’s most recent work turns to the stylised drama of the bullfight. The pageantry and inevitable glorious death are referenced in monumental images of the bull and extraordinarily detailed images of the costumes of the human protagonists. Using controlled and repetitive pencil strokes on large sheets of drafting paper, Lucienne captures the velvety textures of animal flesh and the theatrical richness of the costumes. Highlights appear in the images where she repeatedly works and rubs back sections of the drawing with her fingers and where subtle changes in mark direction create differences of tone. The painstaking and intensely physical nature of this process emphasises the ideas of physicality and transience in her use of imagery. She presents the viewer with richly detailed, textured and challenging works which unite themes of biology, decay, memory, romance and possession.
Lucienne Rickard completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Queensland College of Art in 2001 and, in the following year, Honours (First Class) in Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania. In 2006, she was awarded the Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency at the Cité des Arts Internationale in Paris, which lead to the completion of her PhD in Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania. After several solo and group exhibitions in Tasmania and Queensland, Lucienne first exhibited at Beaver Galleries in 2010.
