Lucia Sidonio is an Ōtautahi Christchurch-based artist who works predominantly in painting. Playful in narrative, her works explore moments of human connection and intimacy. While painting in France, Sidonio drew inspiration from her own past, family photographs and imagined spaces to create a window into the world of childhood whimsy and innocence. Ahead of her exhibition Behind the Scenes she spoke with City Art Reader editor Cameron Ralston. Behind the Scenes opens 5.30pm Tuesday 13th August and runs through to the 2nd of September.
April 1st, Lucia Sidonio, oil on canvas, 920x730mm, 2024
Cameron Ralston: Where does your interest in this world of children come from? What’s the driving force for you to paint this subject?
Lucia Sidonio: I think it comes from two places. The first is by painting from family photos. So often, the pictures would either be of my brother, my cousins or myself. I like to work from images that are familiar to me. Then I reinterpret these images by cropping them in different ways. Secondly, while I was in France this past year, I was working as an English assistant teacher, working with children from the ages of 11 to 15. Doing this job fed into the painting a bit also.
Are all the paintings in this exhibition based on images of your family?
Some of them are, and some are invented. For example, Flicker came about from another painting that I had done based on an image of an almond tree with myself and my cousins in it. We were climbing this tree as children. I was trying to figure out how to resolve the painting but was having difficulty with the existing composition. Eventually, I rebuilt the image, changing the almond tree into a lemon tree and altering the perspective. I liked the idea of a single figure going into this space of foliage and lemons as well as what was happening with the colours and the motif of the lemon. So, Flicker is kind of invented, as is April 1st. Again, I was working with perspective and this idea of a doorway into space with a sort of guardian figure blocking it.
The paintings have this kind of ‘Kodak moment’ feel. There’s a quality of graininess and perspective that you’d get looking through an old family album. Are you trying to create that same feeling?
In a way. They’re moments that feel familiar but have been heightened a bit through how they have been painted. Like how the figure in April 1st is not proportionally correct; it’s larger than it should be. As children, we see adults as larger than they actually are.
Was living and working in France a big influence on the pieces? Has it changed the way you approach anything?
The reason why I went over was to get to know my French side – because I’m half French and wanted to get to know my family and my roots. Through this, I ended up coming across lots of family albums. Working in the South of France, the lighting is completely different. So, maybe it had an influence subconsciously on how I approached the works, but I wasn’t aware of it. Other than that, just being in Europe in general offers so much to see, do and be inspired by.
Was there anything that grabbed your attention specifically?
In 2022, when I exhibited at City Art Depot with Richard Elderton, I talked about this Russian artist, Sanya Kantarovsky. I was fortunate because I was able to see one of his shows in Paris. He presented this exhibition at Modern Art called ‘Teachers and Students’. It was great to see it in the flesh. That inspired me. Otherwise, just going to the public galleries as well, like the Centre Pompidou.
Where were you painting when you were over there? Did you have a studio?
In Montpellier, where I was staying, it was quite hard to find studio space, unlike in Christchurch and other parts of New Zealand, where there are more industrial areas. Rupert [Travis] and I ended up painting in our apartment. It was a tiny bit on the cramped side, but we made it work.
Chatterbox, Lucia Sidonio, oil on linen, 540x650mm, 2024
These figures, compared to those in works you’ve shown previously, are more anonymous. They lack facial features and even the way you’ve painted them feels like a development away from being so specific. Is that quite a deliberate shift?
Yes. Working from family photos was a starting point but I didn’t want the works to be just about the personal. It was so people could see something else, aside from what I could see in it. When you remove facial features, it becomes more anonymous, and then perhaps it reads as more universal. You can leave the viewer to imagine a bit more. Like the figures in Chatterbox, you can’t really see the facial features, but you can fill in what’s missing.
I feel like that’s the same for the narratives that you’ve used – they’re somewhat universal. Like there’s commonality in moments that people have when they’re children.
That’s the idea. Trying to create an image which people can relate to, see themselves in or see someone they know in.
Previously you talked about the soul of the painting, or the soul of a figure, is that still of interest to you?
I think that painting needs to have a life of its own. I think that’s what draws me to paint as medium as well, because it’s a very active process when you’re applying it. There’s a lot of movement in the actual act of painting. You can see the traces after it’s completed. So yeah, I think it still matters, definitely.
When does the soul come through for you? Is it in the conception, when it’s finished, in the process? I’m curious how that works for you and how you find that attachment to your paintings.
It’s hard to pinpoint, to be honest. It’s a really hard thing to know when a painting is done. I don’t have an intense spiritual connection to the paintings as such, but they do have to feel somewhat alive. I also consider my paintings quite formally as well. So that’s when I know when it’s done, looking at contrast and how your eye moves around the plane.
Are you applying some theory to that?
I always consider the layering of colours and how that impacts the overall composition. For example, in April 1st, I wanted the white t-shirt of the adult figure in the foreground to glow. To achieve this, I made sure to only use lighter tones in this one area. The colour mostly comes from the off-white colour of the canvas. If I had put a darker-toned colour underneath, the result would’ve been totally different. These are the formal considerations that usually make or break paintings for me.
Tell me about how you consider the position of the viewer when you’re making or planning a work.
That’s something I’ve been interested in since university. The perspective of where you’re standing, whether you’re higher up looking down or down below looking up. I think that this always comes into what I’m doing. Working with the theme of children, naturally, there is this idea that they’re smaller and adults are larger. Children are almost always going to have this sense of feeling smaller. This subject allows me to experiment with perspective and challenge the viewer as well, because they don’t really know where they’re standing in relation to the image. You kind of flip between being a child and being an adult. That feeds into how you remember things.
There’s a gentleness and almost dream-like quality. A sort of hazy warmth to the works.
I have often thought about how it can be easier to produce something which has sinister undertones because there’s an inherent intrigue in that. It’s sometimes more challenging to create images which don’t explicitly focus on the macabre but still retain an interest. In a way, I have attempted to do this in this series.
You’ve also mentioned that you wanted to capture or speak to an idea of childhood innocence.
Yeah, that was part of my idea. After you become an adult, there are so many problems and responsibilities. Holding onto that feeling of blissful ignorance, that feeling of being a child can be quite nice.
In Your Court, Lucia Sidonio, oil on linen, 540x650mm, 2024
You’ve talked about photographs as a reference. Is there other media that influences your work?
In Your Court is actually based off a still from Aftersun, a film I saw in the cinema. That film speaks to a lot of what I was trying to capture in this series. It’s about the relationship between a father and daughter. It’s a slow burner and a very still film. There are a lot of films that influence me.
Are your works primarily about that relationship between adults and children?
It has become that for the moment. Again, it’s a theme which is quite universal, but it allows me to play with scale, with perspective, and then there’s also something quite fun about it. To a child, the world is this incredibly exciting thing. The series mostly came from being in a different environment in France and coming across those family photos.
Would you say these are French landscapes or French scenes?
I think they are images that could be wherever you want them to be. For example, in Chatterbox, there’s nothing to say that the scene is in France or in New Zealand, it could be both. I don’t think the paintings have a location as such.
You seem to be very motivated by the formal elements of your works too.
Yeah, I do work and rework the images, considering the formal elements. April 1st was completely invented, and initially the arm came down beside the body with the bag of fish down low. I reworked the composition to find a sense of harmony. In doing that, it created more interest with the narrative too as the bag became hidden from the child’s sight. The viewer can see something the child cannot. What I like about painting is that you can be working consistently and then can suddenly be surprised by what you find.
Visitor, Lucia Sidonio, oil on canvas, 300x240mm, 2024
Another example, in the turtle painting, Visitor, it came out of wanting to explore the idea of hands holding or holding objects. This painting was initially two hands holding each other. It wasn’t really working and then it started to look like, as I was reworking it, that the hands were holding a turtle. I thought, what if I get rid of the hands altogether? It ended up being a turtle with its head coming out. Then I thought, I don’t really like the head poking out, so I removed it. Then I added in these half-eaten figs, because in the South of France there are figs everywhere. I quite like the final composition and the narrative of it as well.
I showed these paintings at the school that I was working at, and the kids responded to them. Some of their responses were quite interesting. The teacher who I was working with asked the question, ‘What do you think is happening here?’ looking at Visitor. And they all had different responses. One kid said, ‘The turtle is dead’, and another said, ‘Oh no, it can’t be dead, it’s just hiding.’ They were also all told at one point to stand in front of the painting that they preferred and then explain why. One of the kids stood in front of Flicker, and the teacher asked, ‘What do you like about this one?’ and the boy said, ‘I like it because it reminds me of me’. I was really happy with the responses from the kids, to know that they could appreciate and even relate to some of the narratives in the paintings.
