LUCY MacGILLIS (b.1977)
www.lucymacgillis.com
EDUCATION
2000 B.A. in Fine Arts and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
1999-2000 International School of Art, Umbria, Italy – Painting and drawing instruction with Nick Carone,
William Bailey, Lennart Anderson, Dan Gustin,Ying Li, Ruggero Savinio, Jake Berthot and John Lees
1995-1996 Interlaken School of Art, Interlaken, MA
Lucy MacGillis (b.Pittsfield, MA 1977) has been painting and drawing in Italy since 2000. She grew up in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. She then studied painting at the University of Pennsylvania with John Moore and with Nicolas Carone at the former International School of Art in Montecastello di Vibio, Italy. Here she also studied with Ruggero Savinio, Jake Berthot, John Lees, Ying Li, William Bailey and Dan Gustin.
Upon graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, MacGillis received a post-graduate grant to paint in Italy. There she began to create a series of landscape, interior and still-life paintings. As she continues to observe the landscape surrounding her in Umbria, Italy, she is deeply involved in the process of creating her own oil paint from natural Italian earths. She struggles to grasp and recreate on canvas the illusive, deep space which lies before her studio window, a gaping view across the Tiber Valley. Her representational painting conveys the warmth of Italy yet she places great importance also on the darkness in her paintings and the society she is living in. The winters in Umbria can be dark, a contrast to the glorious summers. And the Umbrians themselves can sometimes be pessimistic and closed minded. MacGillis attempts to seek the darkness in her composition in order to bring out the light, as they both are fundamental.
She has exhibited at the Hoadley Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, Axelle Fine Arts and the Bee in the Lion in New York, the Haus der Kunst in Graz and at the Galleria Ca’d’Oro in Rome. She teaches annual seminars in oil painting with traditional Italian earth colors in Umbria, Germany, Austria and in Florida and Massachusetts. She lives with her son Vito and companion Piero Lanzanò in an old farmhouse she restored in Umbria. Lucy MacGillis is represented in international private and corporate collections. Lucy also currently shows at Selby Fleetwood Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.
