ARTIST'S STATEMENT
"I've always drawn and painted. When I was little, I would watch my Dad at his easel. The smells of paint, turpentine, and linseed oil were as comforting as the smell of home cooking. In recent years, I have found the pure color and amazing versatility of pastels have made it my favorite medium.
The amazing and magical landscape of New Mexico keeps me simultaniously grounded and floating on air. The light, atmosphere and color in the southwest are constantly changing.
Whether I am painting en Plein Air or in the studio, I try to express what I see and how I feel about the beauty of the natural landscape that surrounds me. My goal as an artist is to establish a connection between my expression of what is before me, and you, the viewer."
BIO
Margi Lucena has a deep and abiding appreciation of Nature. She captures details and panoramic vistas with energy and feeling. It is Lucena’s hope that those who view her pastel landscapes, experience some of the pleasure she derives from creating these works.
Lucena has always found joy in making art. As a child, she was fortunate to have many mentors who encouraged her artistic adventures. Her father was a painter, and she grew up watching him and others at the easel.
As a young woman, marriage and motherhood took priority, but her love of art never left her. An illness caused her to slow down and re-assess her life, and art was there, waiting, like a dear old friend.
For decades, Lucena worked in oil and watercolor, squeezing in painting sessions and workshops among her many other responsibilities. After years in Hawaii, life took Lucena and her family to Oklahoma, where she found camaraderie and encouragement from other artists, and began to show her work.
The family lived and worked for a time in Arkansas, and then Lucena and her husband moved to New Mexico. Once again, she received friendship and support from the arts community, and she dove in to painting full-time.
Then fate stepped in. Six years ago, one of her artistic friends gave her a set of pastels. Lucena loved the responsiveness and intensity of the new medium, and pastels soon became her passion. Experimenting with grounds, she quickly abandoned paper for the endurance and versatility of board. Then she learned to add color and texture to her boards before beginning a pastel painting.
The luminosity of Lucena’s work combined with the textured ground and the glare-free glass she uses, causes many people to assume her paintings are created with traditional oil paint. Lucena herself calls them paintings. She views pastels as “paint without the wet,” and she uses the medium in a painterly way.
Margi Lucena’s landscapes are radiant with color and emotion. Her pastel paintings are in private collections throughout the States.
