Luciana Ame “Traces”

We are used to seeing Luciana's large portraits of people in black and white, but now other elements have crept into her images and with them a whole palette of colours.

– Animals and nature have entered my art, says Luciana. The people in my paintings have been given flowers, without colour you wouldn't be able to smell them in the same way. And the animals get to meet people, in those encounters colour was also needed.

But what was it that made them land on her paper, the flowers, plants, panthers and other animals? It all started with a lion in Athens, she says, and then it just kept going.

– My work always starts with an encounter, an aha moment. When I was at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, I saw a sculpture of a lion, for me it was a sudden infatuation and I had to start sketching immediately. That lion was the first animal to find its way into my art and after that they just kept coming. Horses, dogs, panthers... they keep coming.

Luciana mentions the freedom of art compared to music and her background as a classically trained pianist.

– There is the same technical basis in music and art, the same means of expression. Forming a phrase on the piano is in many ways like drawing. When I switched to paper and pencil, I experienced greater artistic freedom. But the quality is still the same, it has to be perfect, excellent. When I draw, it's spontaneous, the lines have to be right from the first stroke. I can never go back and correct, extend or change. Then it won't be right.

My art is moving more and more towards a minimalist expression and sometimes it is important to remember to stop before you say too much, to finish on time and to feel when a work is finished.

The exhibition "Traces" runs 30 June - 4 August 2021 in Stockholm and online and consists of nine drawings, one painting with fifty editions and one screen print.

Discover art by Luciana Ame