Shannon Cartier Lucy’s debut solo show at Night Gallery, “Rubedo,” is on view from February 18 to March 18 in Los Angeles. The exhibition features a new series of oil paintings by the Nashville-based artist, evoking empowerment and self-examination through unusual and uncanny circumstances. The works follow Lucy’s artistic signature, imagined with smooth brushstrokes, realistic uses of color and form, and peculiar composition choices that leave the viewer wondering whether the scene they’re experiencing is meant to be taken literally or figuratively.
Though “rubedo” in Latin translates to “redness,” Lucy has selected the titular word for a history stretching far beyond the literal translation. After being used by alchemists in relation to the color’s metamorphic capacity, the term was coined by Carl Jung as a descriptor for the point of psychological development in which one has come to the actualization of their “true self.” It is often used to refer to the new personality or traits that culminate after a period of extensive hardship: a rebirth after death. Such an idea is embodied in Lucy’s paintings, where her ideas of rubedo,—whether her own or a suggestion of a fictional narrative, the viewer is left to decide—are intimate, beautiful, tense, and transformational moments in time that linger in the mind long after viewing
Shannon Cartier Lucy,
“Goji Berries,” 2022, oil on canvas, 38 x 50 inches; courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery.
The color red is at once subtle and omnipresent in the paintings, which are otherwise comprised of muted tones that further highlight the force of the hue. Even in instances where there isn’t any red to be found, it appears in suggestions of ideas like heat and intensity. Such works include a close-cropped depiction of hands holding flames, a woman undressing nonchalantly with a flaming skirt, or a girl being fed sanguine bunches of goji berries from a mysterious ensemble of hands that surround her.
