TITLE: The Domestic Series

I took up the camera as a 2nd medium three years ago, once my ninety-one-year-old mother who has dementia needed care-giving and moved into my home. I wanted to engage with her somehow, and documenting her life, her thoughts, her frustrations because of her age and illness, the camera gave me the opportunity to create possibilities where both of us were involved together. Mom loves participating, and the process of 'play acting' while we arrange these visuals, has giving her a sense of worth, of belonging and of re-connecting with herself. At the same time, it has giving me the opportunity of associating with her in a profound way.
'The Domestic Series' is the latest collaboration of artist and model, depicting ordinary household situations, described with visual humour and with a sense of semi- awkwardness. Now, my mom at age 94, once deemed as a nursing home candidate, has continued to flourish in her new environment, and this story-telling has given her a renewed boost of 'life'. As for me, it has opened up a slew of beautiful possibilities. The ideas keep flowing. The love of mother and son, though the rolls are reversed now, is everlasting.

AUTHOR: Tony Luciani (Canada)

Tony Luciani was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1956. The artist, growing up in Toronto, was able to partake in the best possible creative education. After Central Technical School, Sheridan Community College, and the Ontario College of Art from 1975 to 1978, Tony received his degree along with post graduate study in the off-campus program in Florence, Italy.
In defining his work, the artist prefers to be placed in a tradition of realism which is interpretive as well as with focused observation. All preparatory drawings are done on location and then worked to a larger scale in the studio where details are eliminated or elaborated in order to convey the artist's intent. Luciani considers his early major influence to pass through Antonio Lopez Garcia to Stanley Spencer and as far back to Van Eyck and Bruegel the Younger.
An award winner with the George A. Reid Scholarship (OCA), Elizabeth Greenshields Foundations Grant (3) and numerous Canada Council Arts Grants, Tony Luciani began to paint full time upon graduation and has subsequently exhibited constantly since l978.
In the 80's, Luciani left Toronto to live in rural Ontario and it is this change which has profoundly altered his choice of subject matter. Still a figure and still life painter, the landscape and small towns have become part of his life and as a result a major source of inspiration.
Tony Luciani is represented in important private and corporate collections throughout Canada and the world.