The mission - against all odds!
Making the Unknown Known
The process informs me ...
Curated by Liz Eakins: July 25 to August 25, 2025
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There is something profound about engaging with this demanding ancient medium through a contemporary lens.
The process demands total presence, and the immediacy and permanence of fresco painting mirror life itself — unrepeatable, raw, and real. J Luchese I am emmensely grateful to Ted Fullerton for the essay which coined the phrase which completely captures the essence of my practise. 'The process informs me' included below and Renata McGinn: 'Stories Within', a review of the 2024 Orillia OMAH Exhibition, |
Terence McKenna famously said: ‘The Artist’s task is to save the souls of mankind and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because if the artists, who are self-selected for being able to journey into the ‘Other’, if the artists cannot find the way, then ‘the way’ cannot be found.' ... 'Art is not merely a decorative pursuit but a fundamental and essential human endeavour, particularly when informed by altered states of consciousness.' (Terence McKenna, writer, philosopher, mystic (1946 - 2000)).
McKenna's words resonate deeply within me as my art practice is closely aligned with concepts surrounding consciousness, the known, unknown. As an explorer of the "Other," I courageously delve into the unseen realms of consciousness and imagination. These powerful sources of inspiration and altered states of awareness continually fuel my creativity and insights. A new beginning inspired by life and historical frescos, the title, coined in Ted Fullerton's Essay ... 'The Process Informs Me' is an accurate summation of my art practice ... Every aspect of this new body of work captures the joy of exploring an uncharted process, transformation, identity, authenticity, and resilience while finding new footing and foundation in my new life and art practice through my heritage and culture. Read "How I got here." |
The Process Informs Me:
The Creative Expression and Artistry of Jeanette Luchese
Essay by Ted Fullerton
Creativity and the creative process, that exists as both intuitive and acquired, is an enigmatic entity. For the artist acquired and intuitive knowledge can exist in unison or at odds with each other allowing a dialogue or conversation of creative significance. Intuitive knowledge is sourced from an instinctive and penetrating time held experience while obtained without recourse to conscious reasoning or need of an explanation. Acquired knowledge, that is both cognitive and skill based, is founded and resourced within a relative timeline, a learned and applied ideal or skill.
Immanuel Kant — Intuition without ideas are blind, and ideas without intuition are empty.
I have observed Jeanette Luchese for many years as a passionate creative individual and artist. Her strong sense of design, based upon years as a graphic designer, and her engagement and dedication as a visual artist, fused with a fervent commitment of self expression, is a merging of acquired and intuitive visual depth. Whether she is working in drawing, painting, printmaking or sculpture her creative expression is guided by a profound visual understanding while allowing herself to be consumed by the arresting and intuitive guide of process. A passion to express an idea informs her while she instinctively is guided by materials and their application resulting in a visual “abstract” of a heartfelt and deeply personal narrative that can be shared with anyone who chooses to engage. Her passion and interest with materials is undaunted, perhaps fuelled by her Italian roots and its time held history? She refuses not to be “side lined” by an unknown and “jumps in” with both feet - sink or swim - always staying “afloat” - quickly moving to a significant and confident “stroke”. I have, on the odd occasion, witnessed Jeanette fully engaged within the creative process. With a distinctive idea or “vision” that she wants to express she “goes within herself” were she “becomes” with materials, process, concept and idea - a single creative force tempered by “seasoned” skill and a knowledge foundation while allowing intuition to surface from the unconscious to inform her.
Jeanette’s visual expression traverses from abstraction to and from “snippets” of emotive representative experiences fuelled by the significance of colour and expressive gestures that move towards a symbolic interpretation. How we choose to look at her work is how we perceive it “to be”. That is clearly indicated and understood by her and expressed within her artist statement: A practice rooted in materiality and emotions driven by an interest in the deception in perception: the contrast between what “is seen” and what is understood.
Within her most recent sojourn into the time held art form of traditional historical fresco techniques, she brings a contemporary lens of abstraction. Having been “enlightened” from two relatively recent trips to Italy she states; finding a new footing/foundation within my heritage and culture - a forever memory of standing within the Chapel of Giotto frescos in Padua in 2019. It is clear that “connecting” with her Italian heritage as a first generation Italian Canadian is significant as a sensory gathering and bond with an aspect of a “cultural tradition”. Having experienced and seen how this medium - fresco’s - respond within the “Italian light” she is intent and driven on capturing a contemporary expression of a time held medium within the “Canadian light” to be “enlightened” anew with the merging of the present with the past.
What stands out to me is how Jeanette is able to maintain a visual expressive statement of “immediacy” with a medium that requires a certain amount of application “restraint”. The process requires pigment to be mixed with room temperature water and is applied on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster. Because of the chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the wet plaster which in turn becomes the medium holding the pigment. As indicated, it is a medium that somewhat defies, “expressive immediacy”. However, Jeanette is able to overcome this tedious process where her passionate and expressive method of working, that is both intuitive and “acquired” results in a unique and personal visual expression, matched only by her paintings, were image and medium are aligned and experienced “anew”.
Within Jeanette’s artist statement she professes, “In the perfect here and the complete now, I respond to life, to living”. It is without question that Jeanette adheres to her own declaration of living and expressing that experience in a unique, visceral, visual statement while the process - of life and the breadth of creative expression - informs her.
The Creative Expression and Artistry of Jeanette Luchese
Essay by Ted Fullerton
Creativity and the creative process, that exists as both intuitive and acquired, is an enigmatic entity. For the artist acquired and intuitive knowledge can exist in unison or at odds with each other allowing a dialogue or conversation of creative significance. Intuitive knowledge is sourced from an instinctive and penetrating time held experience while obtained without recourse to conscious reasoning or need of an explanation. Acquired knowledge, that is both cognitive and skill based, is founded and resourced within a relative timeline, a learned and applied ideal or skill.
Immanuel Kant — Intuition without ideas are blind, and ideas without intuition are empty.
I have observed Jeanette Luchese for many years as a passionate creative individual and artist. Her strong sense of design, based upon years as a graphic designer, and her engagement and dedication as a visual artist, fused with a fervent commitment of self expression, is a merging of acquired and intuitive visual depth. Whether she is working in drawing, painting, printmaking or sculpture her creative expression is guided by a profound visual understanding while allowing herself to be consumed by the arresting and intuitive guide of process. A passion to express an idea informs her while she instinctively is guided by materials and their application resulting in a visual “abstract” of a heartfelt and deeply personal narrative that can be shared with anyone who chooses to engage. Her passion and interest with materials is undaunted, perhaps fuelled by her Italian roots and its time held history? She refuses not to be “side lined” by an unknown and “jumps in” with both feet - sink or swim - always staying “afloat” - quickly moving to a significant and confident “stroke”. I have, on the odd occasion, witnessed Jeanette fully engaged within the creative process. With a distinctive idea or “vision” that she wants to express she “goes within herself” were she “becomes” with materials, process, concept and idea - a single creative force tempered by “seasoned” skill and a knowledge foundation while allowing intuition to surface from the unconscious to inform her.
Jeanette’s visual expression traverses from abstraction to and from “snippets” of emotive representative experiences fuelled by the significance of colour and expressive gestures that move towards a symbolic interpretation. How we choose to look at her work is how we perceive it “to be”. That is clearly indicated and understood by her and expressed within her artist statement: A practice rooted in materiality and emotions driven by an interest in the deception in perception: the contrast between what “is seen” and what is understood.
Within her most recent sojourn into the time held art form of traditional historical fresco techniques, she brings a contemporary lens of abstraction. Having been “enlightened” from two relatively recent trips to Italy she states; finding a new footing/foundation within my heritage and culture - a forever memory of standing within the Chapel of Giotto frescos in Padua in 2019. It is clear that “connecting” with her Italian heritage as a first generation Italian Canadian is significant as a sensory gathering and bond with an aspect of a “cultural tradition”. Having experienced and seen how this medium - fresco’s - respond within the “Italian light” she is intent and driven on capturing a contemporary expression of a time held medium within the “Canadian light” to be “enlightened” anew with the merging of the present with the past.
What stands out to me is how Jeanette is able to maintain a visual expressive statement of “immediacy” with a medium that requires a certain amount of application “restraint”. The process requires pigment to be mixed with room temperature water and is applied on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster. Because of the chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the wet plaster which in turn becomes the medium holding the pigment. As indicated, it is a medium that somewhat defies, “expressive immediacy”. However, Jeanette is able to overcome this tedious process where her passionate and expressive method of working, that is both intuitive and “acquired” results in a unique and personal visual expression, matched only by her paintings, were image and medium are aligned and experienced “anew”.
Within Jeanette’s artist statement she professes, “In the perfect here and the complete now, I respond to life, to living”. It is without question that Jeanette adheres to her own declaration of living and expressing that experience in a unique, visceral, visual statement while the process - of life and the breadth of creative expression - informs her.