Portrait by: Gene Sasse 2013

Wave | MonoPrint 2012

Stories from the Art: Veronica Lucas

“Life takes us on many journeys of emotional awareness. On happy days I unconsciously pick bolder brighter colors from my palette. On cold or somber days you will see deeper darker colors.”

Veronica Lucas, driven by a need to express her emotions, puts her heart and energy into her print making. “How I feel in my day to day life is reflected in my work” she says. Vibrant colors and sensual textures combine as she uses very large machines to create very delicate art. Veronica is adept at mono-printing, and creates single sheets of original beauty.

Coming from a family of artists and art lovers, the creative process is familiar to Veronica. Memories of painting in oils, sculpting in clay, and using her mother’s “good” art supplies are precious to her. She relished the time that she and her sister (now a professional photographer) spent at her family’s dining room table making art. “My mother was my first art teacher” she says with the sweetest of smiles.  

Today, she is still making art at a table – a large 10 foot table topped with thick glass serves as her generous palette and is housed in a spacious studio constructed by her husband. She places ink on the glass with a sure hand, and makes her marks and designs with the confidence that comes from experience. Her pieces, her mono-prints, are lavish and lovely; and with music as her companion she lets her emotions control her creativity.

Veronica’s day to day experiences are expressed in her work and each piece is infused with the emotions she releases at the time of creation. Veronica’s art is varied in look but similar in kind; beautiful, evocative, and prolific. “Although each of my prints is different aesthetically, I use similar methods in making my marks. You can see some commonality in the marks in my prints especially when I am excited.” Meticulous in how she places her paper, her ink is put on with generous ease or pinpoint precision, depending on her mood.

Working as the Principal Graphic Designer for the city of Riverside, her day job taps into her creative side as well, but it is the more emotive part of her that is unleashed in her studio. She seems to flow through her day, expressing her artistic nature wherever she finds herself.

Veronica doesn’t come to the plate with a preconceived idea of what she wants. She allows it to come into being when she picks up the ink from her palette. So she works, and the story is developed and told in the piece. Abstract marks of glorious color; trees, flowers, and patterns emerge as Veronica works out her various emotions with the tools of her artistic trade, and the prints fill her studio - in frames, in whisper thin cellophane, in drawers and on drying racks... Veronica moves from piece to piece looking as much like a choreographer as an artist, and her pieces not only dance, but they sing.

Rain Storm | Monoprint 2013

Meadow in Spring | Monoprint 2013

Curator: Gene Sasse
Writer: Laurie Morrison

© 2013 Inland Empire Museum of Art
All Art © by The Artist