Innocence and provocation, fortitude and vulnerability, sexuality and modesty. These are just some of the tropes that appear over and over again in oil painter Lucy Luckovich’s work. Pop My Cherry! is a solo exhibition of Luckovich’s artwork at Cat Eye Creative in South Downtown featuring poignant paintings that feature cherries, jewelry, pearls, hands, and fabric in thoughtful compositions.
As a young girl, Luckovich spent much of her time making art and she grew up surrounded by art in her family home. Her three siblings all love art, her mother Margo is an oil painter, and her father Mike is a Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist who has been working with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1989. Though she has always had a clear passion and talent for art it took her some time to begin considering fine art as a viable career path.
Fine art first came into the spotlight for Luckovich in seventh grade when one particularly influential teacher, Patrick DeAngelis, introduced her to oil painting. It was love at first brushstroke. Her mother devoted herself to teaching Luckovich how to paint with oils and she continued practicing and learning all throughout high school.
Credit: Isadora Pennington
Credit: Isadora Pennington
Though Luckovich had been working in oils for years, it was really during her freshman year at Georgia State University that she dove in head first. When the pandemic forced in-person classes to be canceled and all students were sent home she shifted her focus to her art. “I had nothing to do so I was just painting every day, and that’s when it became a practice. It was part of my everyday routine,” explained Luckovich. “It has always been my thing; it has always been the thing I was most interested in.”
That practice paid off. Today Luckovich is 22 and is already showing her art in Atlanta galleries like Cat Eye Creative and she will be traveling to New York City to display her work in a show at tchotchke gallery this summer. She also works as an assistant to local Iranian-American artist Niki Zarrabi which has given her invaluable insight and experience in the art industry. Luckovich is set to graduate from GSU in December of 2023.
Though she initially went into college to become a graphic designer – a concession she made to her parents in an effort to build a sustainable career in the arts – once she got into the coursework she realized that graphic design was not the right fit for her. “I’m a stubborn person so if I’m not really into what I’m doing I don’t engage with it.” Luckovich said. Fortunately for her, the faculty at Georgia State University have been incredibly supportive and helpful as she navigates her college classes and considers her post-grad career.
“I talked to one of my teachers and he told me that his parents also didn’t want him to just study art, they wanted him to do something more practical,” Luckovich remembered. “He told me that even though he didn’t have the most money in the world or the nicest car, he has the most beautiful life and he enjoys it because he spends so much time doing what he wants to do.” That conversation left an indelible mark on the young artist and inspired her to switch her major to Drawing and Painting.
In 2021 Luckovich discovered Cat Eye Creative and sent owner Adam Crawford a message inquiring about renting a studio space. She had gotten a rather large-scale commission to paint a portrait of one of her friends for their parents and her small apartment didn’t afford her enough room to complete the job. Though at first she asked about using a space for just a couple of weeks Crawford suggested that she rent the studio for a whole month. At the time she lived nearby and walked over every day, spending hours tucked away working on her paintings and completing her coursework remotely on her laptop. One day Crawford invited her to be in a group show called We See You in March of 2021. “I remember that when I got the email I was in my apartment with my roommates and I started freaking out and crying, it was such a huge deal. It was my first time in a gallery.”
Credit: Isadora Pennington
Credit: Isadora Pennington
Throughout the last few years she has experimented and explored techniques in her paintings, eventually developing her style and finding her stride. “I like to think of my paintings as depictions of my inner world, I guess. I’m trying to portray what I experience as a feminine state of mind onto canvas using objects and fabric and creating different textures.” When talking with Luckovich, that’s really what is at the center of her current body of work: femininity and the feminine experience.
In her paintings Luckovich seems to ask; what exactly does it mean to be a woman? A girl? To be delicate and precious, coveted and kept? How also does it feel to be mistreated, to be victimized? There is a darkness there just beyond the pretty colors and the shiny surfaces. This is the duality of womanhood, and Luckovich has drilled down these ideas into a dialogue of juxtaposed imagery and symbolism.
“I always think about how women are forced to either be a dark seductress or an ignorant child, and how both of those are sexualized,” explained Luckovich.
In Luckovich’s work cherries appear time and again. They represent the innocence of youth and are symbolic of virginity as evidenced by the colloquialism ‘to pop one’s cherry.’ In some pieces these cherries appear ripe and ready to eat, untouched and pristine. In others the cherries are sliced, stabbed, and penetrated. Meanwhile, the pearls in her work hint at another side of femininity. They suggest elegance and poise, their delicate strands gently winding through the frame. For Luckovich, pearls represent the mother. In some compositions her hands can be seen gently cradling cherries and pearls as they are wrapped or tangled in chains and rosaries. The fabric that lays behind these elements offers contrasting texture and, in some, depictions of women expressing breastmilk and nursing.
Credit: Isadora Pennington
Credit: Isadora Pennington
It’s clear that Luckovich has been thinking a lot about girlhood, womanhood, and the transition to motherhood. She told me about her older sister who was nine when she was born and has always filled a motherly role in her life. As she spoke about the experience of seeing her sister become a mom it became apparent just how tenderly she holds that relationship. “It’s really cool seeing her pregnant and thinking about her having a little girl and how she’s going to be such a great mom,” she said, her voice catching as she wiped away a tear. “I’ve just been thinking about womanhood, sisterhood, and taking care of other women. I think that has been coming through in my work.”
See Lucy Luckovich’s solo exhibition Pop My Cherry! at Cat Eye Creative through April 30, 2023. To see more of Luckovich’s work go to her website or give her a follow on Instagram.
Credit: Rough Draft Atlanta
Credit: Rough Draft Atlanta
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