Lucienne Fontannazis originally from Switzerland. She has master degrees in Art Education (Concordia University) and Art Administration (University of New South Wales) as well as a research Master of Fine Arts degree (University of New South Wales). In 2021, she has completed a Doctor of Visual Arts program at the Queensland College of Art (Griffith University). Lucienne has taught art, exhibited her paintings and published books in Switzerland, Canada, Australia and China. She has also worked as a curator of major art exhibitions on subjects such as historic and contemporary Aboriginal artworks, Chinese memorabilia and art addressing cultural diversity, language and identity. Lucienne’s earlier paintings depicted landscapes of the Swiss Alps and Australian desert scenery equally inspired by their topography and traditional stories. In recent years, her artworks have addressed the stereotypical representation of women, both historically and in to-day’s media.

Palaces of Nature, detail Lucienne’s paintings for Poetic Nature II come from a continuing series of more than 100 paintings she began over 20 years ago. These artworks were originally presented in her exhibition L’Alpe fantasmée, at the Musée du Chablais, Bex, Switzerland and subsequently in several Swiss galleries. This solo exhibition coincided with, and therefore was included in, a larger artistic and multidisciplinary project titled Poetry and Landscapes, which was being staged in the same area of the Swiss Alps.

Lucienne’s paintings draw upon her memories of the Alps, her desire to reconnect with the drama of the landscape that shaped her early years. However, significantly, she created these paintings in Sydney, about as far away from the Alps as you might get, gazing through the large bay windows of her studio, where she has an uninterrupted view of the Pacific Ocean with its endless waves and distant gently curving horizon.

Lucienne has developed a special technique for representing the mountains through inter-mixing acrylic paints, glazes and inks either on canvas or on board. From the initial very free application of colour making spontaneous yet inspired forms, emerges the strong personality of the mountains. Lucienne then defines and refines these images through a more painterly process, always keeping open the potential for the unexpected effect. This is how discovery of the as yet unknown, the imagination, deep memories, feeling and primal recognition are simultaneously at play, in flux. Sometimes at the outset, sometimes during, and occasionally at the very end of the process, the early travellers’ writing becomes a compliment, an aid in the interpretation of these complex, always daunting and sometimes haunting images.