Here to There – Richard Elderton & Lucia Sidonio
In thier first joint show together Richard Elderton and Lucia Sidonio explore notions of memory, time and place through oil on canvas and board.
Elderton uses his scenes and objects as a vehicle to delve into his impressionist-style painting. Imagined coastal scenes combine influences from his childhood in Japan and the journey through Kaikōura to his studio in Blenheim. These pieces traverse the folds between memory and experience, idyllic and hazy in their light. Swinging pendulums further investigate how light and moments are captured within paint.
Sidonio references photographs taken during her childhood in England. Taking these as jumping off points, she distils and saturates her figures to find and enhance the soul of the scene. Sidonio’s family of characters play and wander in the landscape, jackets and hats popping from the mottled snow, the blending and soaking of paint in the canvas reflecting the blurred way we look back on childhood.
Lucia Sidonio is an Ōtautahi Christchurch based artist and recent Ilam School of Fine Arts graduate. Born in London with French and Italian heritage, her paintings draw from and echo European modernism. Her studio practice looks at finding ways to translate and represent fleeting moments, each painting serving as an occasion for figures to perform. There is a play between concealing, revealing, and projecting, both from the subject matter and the method being used to describe it. Gestural brushstrokes and areas of saturated hues assist the depicted characters in their expression while the paint pronounces itself with a similar tone.
Richard Elderton, is a Te Waipounamu South Island based painter and recent Ilam School of Fine Arts graduate. Born in Japan, his bicultural upbringing has led to a particular fascination with 19th century Japonism and wayo secchu, which often informs a foundation to his practice. He views his paintings as visual poetry; narratives are open-ended, and art is created through a multitude of personalities. His works focus on depictions of natural light and the interpretation of colour and form, which express the emotive or thematic quality of a scene.