Lucy Fahey

Lucy Fahey
Australian, born 1984; lives and works in Djilang/Geelong

Eleanor feeds 2021
oil on oil sketch paper
Courtesy of artist

Artist statement:

When COVID restrictions lifted, my sister Alice and infant niece were able to visit. Separated for months, I’d missed much of my niece Eleanor’s development. Watching Alice feeding her, this everyday and intimate moment felt thrilling and significant for all that I’d missed.

While painting this work, I was struck by the similarities between Grace Cossington Smith’s painting The Sock Knitter (1915) and my own. There’s a likeness in the palette, composition and story.

Both paintings depict our sisters calmly absorbed in domestic tasks at a time of unprecedented societal upheaval. Grace’s sister knits socks for soldiers during WWI, while my sister nourishes her child as a global pandemic rages around the world.

This painting celebrates the domestic sphere, an everyday scene, but the apparent calm and ordinariness is a ruse. The painting documents a period of great disruption and change, both within my family and the world around us.