Aptly titled ‘A Decade of Dance’, the curatorial focus of Debra Luccio’s solo exhibition at Melbourne’s fortyfivedownstairs looks at how the artist’s signature style of monotype prints has developed over the last ten years of her career. Honouring an extensive collection of Luccio’s works, the gallery will present fifty-six paintings inspired by noteworthy performances by the dancers of The New York City Ballet and the Australian Ballet.
Debra Luccio, Chynoweth, 2017, monotype on Velin Arches paper, 59.5 x 43cm (Brett Chynoweth, The Australian Ballet, rehearsing Tim Harbour’s Squander and Glory). Photograph: Filippo Messina
Luccio’s interest in performance was sparked during a trip to New York in 2007, where the artist was invited to draw during the rehearsals of the New York City Ballet. During this time, the artist was able to watch a contemporary dance performance, Landfall, by the Tiffany Mills Company at the Joyce SoHo, and since then has been enthralled by the beauty and eloquence of the dancers’ movements. Her portrayal of this whimsical subject through a unique combination of expressive abstraction with realism has lead to numerous award wins and her work housed in prestigious collections such as The New York Public Library.
Debra Luccio, Aurora in Purple, 2016, monotype and etching ink on Velin Arches paper, 43.5 x 39cm (Lana Jones, The Australian Ballet, rehearsing David McAllister’s The Sleeping Beauty). Photograp: Filippo Messina
Tracing back ten years, the artist remembers the time she spent in the electric city of New York, where she would convert her small rented apartment into a studio, using the floor to roll her monotypes and the bed as her drying rack. Luccio jokingly recalls how this set up “worked well until we needed to sleep”. But whilst space might have been an issue for the artist then, the voluminous home of fortyfivedownstairs shows just how far her career has come. In this space Luccio’s work seems to leap off the walls, shimmering with expression afforded by her painterly, layered, unique approach to monotype. Much like the performances she portrays, many of Luccio¹s work are grand in scale and filled with great emotive energy.
Luccio’s work, whilst two-dimensional, evocatively conveys a sense of energy and movement, in part due to her great use of colour, and her printing process, creating both monotypes and mezzotints. The artist uses an inked roller to layer colours on a copper sheet before rubbing back the etching ink in the form of a dancer. Following this unique process, the artist uses copper plates to perfect the details of her sculptural and imaginative figures before printing with fine brushes. When the artwork is completed on the copper sheet, paper is placed over the top and run through a printmaking press, transferring the image from the plate directly onto the paper.
fortyfivedownstairs
19 September to 14 October, 2017
Melbourne
