Lulliby, 2023, 34 x 46 in, Oil on canvas , Courtesy of the artist
narrative, dissolved
In dialogue with Shannon Cartier Lucy
FVTVRIST Magazine // December, 2025
Shannon Cartier Lucy’s work is always easily described (and titled) — Woman with a Juice Box, The Red Gladiolus, Woman with Shovel, Bedside Table. That simple and direct, except there’s always a tingle of discomfort, a singular absurdist quality, twinkling the viewer’s imagination. Fvtvrist speaks with the artist about this duality and complexity she portrays as something mundane.
Can you tell us what you’re working on right now?
I am currently working on a show entitled Bucket of Birds made up exclusively of animal paintings. The show is scheduled for the end of April 2026 at Night Gallery in Los Angeles. I am also working on a forthcoming book of my paintings, which will be my second to date.
Your paintings often feel like a memory. How do you decide the line between fantasy and autobiography?
The paintings are about half fantasy/half autobiographical. I’d say all of the images I create are fantasy, but inevitably what I am expressing psychologically and emotionally through the imagery is coming from my personal experience. Actual figures and objects from my real life do appear in many of my paintings, but I don’t think that it has much relevance to the meaning of the work. My nieces have modeled for me, for instance, but no one would need to know. I used to model for my own paintings, but mostly out of sheer convenience.
Your paintings are full of stories and expressive details. When you start a piece, do you focus on a single object and let the story emerge, or do you create the story first?
My creative process starts by combining multiple images or objects and figures to create tension. I am always trying to land on a combination that invokes a particular feeling, something new to me. I do not consciously have the story in mind. I keep the imagery ambiguous enough so that someone looking at a painting can draw upon their own emotions and respond with their own stories. Therefore, my paintings tend to invite multiple narratives.
You’ve recently exhibited in London, Paris, and Los Angeles. Did showing your work in different cities change the way you approached it?
I had a show in Milan once and decided to focus on death (as depicted in art history) and tomatoes, two things I personally relate to Italy.
When showing in different cities like London, Paris, or Los Angeles, I usually have not guided the work or created a theme based on the city. I may, however, do it without knowing I’m doing it.
Skirt on fire, 2025, Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London
Woman with noodle necklace, 2025, Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London
Untitled (boat), 2025, Oil on canvas. Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, London
In Woman with a Juice Box, childhood items like pencils and juice boxes are very present. What is the story behind them?
I think Woman with a juice box came about as I am sinking into middle age and reflecting on behaviors, emotional experiences, and struggles of my inner child, so to speak—childish rebelliousness, disobedience, but also the need for emotional attendance or a parent.
Looking at Rubedo and Woman with a Juice Box, which aspects of these projects are you most attached to? What mattered to you the most while working on them?
I only came up with the theme Rubedo (red), which refers to a stage in alchemy, after I had created a few paintings and was searching for a common thread. Fire, bricks, and the color red… it made sense. My current show in London, Woman with a juice box, is the title of a painting I finished and decided to work an entire show around.
So I’d say there isn’t one strategy in coming up with a show.One rule I do follow, though, is I try not to force a theme onto work or force paintings into a strict theme. I think because I just finished Woman with a juice box, I relate more with that right now. But I have already moved on to what’s next!
Your work often feels very personal. How do you protect yourself while being able to achieve this level of vulnerability?
I consider vulnerability to be a strength. I feel more solid when I can be honest and forthcoming in my artwork. I think expressing human vulnerability in artwork is a way to emotionally connect with others in a meaningful way.
Are there questions about your work you’ve always wanted to be asked but never have been?
This question, lol.
Shannon Cartier Lucy, Woman with a juice box, 2025, Soft Opening, London, Courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, Photography: Eva Herzog
Artist Statement
Art, I believe, is so valuable in its ability to convey the “in-between” spaces and arouse in us a forcible feeling of the uncanny. I paint impressions and situations, which painted in a traditional figurative style, appear recognizable and realistic. My paintings can be easily described; a fishbowl on a stove, a woman in bed playing basketball, white underwear on a persian rug, etc.. But these paintings have an absurd quality to them in their deviational and challenging arrangements.
I want to create an intimate yet slightly uncomfortable space. I want to generate a vivid emotional response, but also leave an impression of uncertainty. Visually, I try to capture postures and moments with an off-centered quality I’m used to seeing in photographs, perhaps, but not generally in painting. And because faces are so expressive, obscuring the faces in my paintings creates for the viewer a way out and a way in, for accessing the experience more personally. By generalizing in these ways, I hope meaning can be less contingent on my prescribing one.
I grew up with a parent with schizophrenia. It was customary in my home to find a toaster in the freezer or The Holy Bible in the dishwasher. A strange environment, perhaps, to grow up in, an environment fashioned by someone with “disordered thinking and behavior.” But disordered reality has become an elevated language for me. It’s poetic and hilarious. Disturbing but also relatable.
The images I paint are strange, violent, and unsettling, but at the same time beautiful, inviting and intriguing. The dissolution of narrative in my paintings, while staying familiar, points to, I believe, a timeless, universal, and indefinable truth. This peculiar new home I’m creating is enigmatic, but perhaps more “real” than what we take for granted as such.
The aspects of life we generally take for granted like securing a home, a family, and finding a role to play in society are ways we attempt to make life meaningful. But, life immersed in this material world brings its own disorder and grief. And I think on some level, we all crave relief from the “order” of our everyday lives. So by expressing the simple, mundane and oppressive aspects of my own life perhaps these paintings can transmute my own inner experience into one which is felt more universally.
Shannon Lucy, 2019.
