Lucy Chetcuti: Artist Statement & Bio

Lucy Chetcuti is a multidisciplinary artist based in Kamberri/Canberra, working across painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and monotyping. Her practice is grounded in a deep engagement with queer-ecology, using the natural world as both subject and framework to explore queerness, identity, and belonging. Queer relationality and intimacy are at the centre of her practice. 

Drawing from walks on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, Lucy observes plant life and landscapes, translating these encounters into abstract forms that echo natural rhythms. Her work often resists rigid categorisation, instead moving fluidly between materials and processes to create layered, sensory experiences. Through this, she questions and dismantles heteronormative ideas of what is “natural,” embracing queerness as something instinctive, vital, and ever-present in the world around us.

Lucy's visual language is experimental and intuitive. She uses colour, texture and material to evoke emotion and memory, often creating works that sit between the personal and the universal. Recent explorations into monotyping have expanded her practice further, allowing for improvisation and immediacy in her mark-making.

Her work is also informed by community and collaboration. She has been involved in artist-run spaces, curated exhibitions, and participated in collective projects. These experiences reflect a belief that art is not only about solitary practice but about shared spaces, voices, and dialogue. Lucy’s work consistently centres on reimagining the relationship between bodies and the environment—seeking to reclaim softness, pleasure, and complexity in the face of social and ecological precarity.

Lucy Chetcuti is an emerging artist based in Kamberri/Canberra with a growing exhibition history and recognition across Australia. She has presented four solo exhibitions, including All Fours at Canberra Contemporary Art Space Manuka (2023), Causal Relationships at Strathnairn Arts (2022), and Undivided Attention at The Front Gallery (2022) and Waxing, Waning at M16 Artspace (2015). Her most recent exhibition Looking Up and Looking Down at ANCA (2024), was featured in Art Guide Australia’s ‘Top 5 Exhibitions for the Week’. 

Chetcuti has featured in several curated group exhibitions including Exhibition No.1 at Civic Art Bureau (2024), Monuments of Nature at Red Gallery in Melbourne (2024), On Exhibition at Stanley Street Gallery (2024), Loose Ends at ANCA (2024), and Hot Mess at Sawtooth ARI (2024). She was selected for BLAZE at CCAS Lakeside (2023), and has participated in exhibitions at Beaver Galleries, M16 Artspace, and the ANU School of Art and Design Gallery. She has twice been a finalist in the Goulburn Art Award (2022, 2024), exhibited in Small Dreams and Reprise at Stanley Street Gallery, and multiple exhibitions at Tributary Projects.

Her practice has been recognised with several awards. In 2021, she received the ANU School of Art and Design Drawing Prize, the M16 Residency and Exhibition Prize, and the CAPO Allinsure Emerging Artist Award. That same year, she undertook a six-month studio residency at M16 Artspace. In 2024, she joined the ANU Sharing Stories Arts Exchange Program.
In addition to her art practice, Lucy has curated several exhibitions, including Cathy Zhang: Medium of Wonders at ANU’s China in the World Gallery (2024) and The Fig Tree,  a gallery exchange project with UNSW AD Space (2019). Her multidisciplinary approach and commitment to community-led projects reflect a practice grounded in an evolving engagement with place and identity.

Lucy Chetcuti: CV November, 2025 Download