Lucent

Naarm/Melbourne-based contemporary painter Stacey McCall returns to Michael Reid Murrurundi with Lucent, a sublime new collection of still-life paintings that flowered from the sketchbooks she kept during an extended sojourn in the City of Light. Titled after the gorgeous, gauzy glow that washes through each picture and lights up her elegant, effortlessly arranged accoutrements and tableware, the series sees McCall hone a softly expressive painterly language rooted in tonal underpainting.

“The basis of my work has always been the tonal underpainting, with layers of translucent pigment allowing those initial marks to glow through,” says McCall. “Lucent explores that process even more, focusing on light and colour while referencing the many sketches I did on my travels this year.”

Evoking the essence of her still-life objects with an economy of graceful gestures and pared-back textural markings that emerge through clouds of earthy, peachy tones, McCall’s deceptively simple, deftly realised style feels perfectly attuned to the warm insouciance and easy eclecticism of the Parisian pied-à-terre she temporarily called home. The result is a luminous body of work that expands her distinctive and richly evocative approach to the still-life genre, allowing the cumulative impact of her handmade objects and artfully undone florals and fruit to conjure a familiar yet faraway mood.

For enquiries, please email amandamackinlay@michaelreid.com.au