Lucy Stark

My work is a tribute to family, memory, and pleasure. Food has always played an important role in my life as a means of connection. Like many families, all of our traditions revolve around food. Growing up, we made the same recipes for the same holidays year after year. In my recent series I document these holiday meals. I began with Butter Builds Bones; it is a depiction of our annual Christmas Eve party spread, and one of my grandmother’s trademark expressions. This series is not only a tribute to the warmth of family, the passing down of stories and cultures through food, and the chefs in my life—mostly women—but it is also a practice in memory and documentation. In a way these paintings are a diary, as well as a cookbook or shopping list. I am cataloging elements of the party, the food, tablecloths, and dinnerware as a way to preserve the past. However, like memories, these paintings are not an exact replica. Wonky perspectives and the impossibility of the scene are an inevitable byproduct of compiling millions of snapshots that have lived in my head for so many years. – Lucy Stark

Lucy Stark is a painter and printmaker living in Oakland. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Art Practice. Stark works at Paulson Fontaine Press. She has volunteered with Creative Growth, and is a member of Max’s Garage Press. Her work is inspired by family and passing down traditions. Paintings are a record of family meals as a tribute to the chefs in her life and as a practice in memory and documentation. Stark’s work has been shown at the Bedford Gallery, Arc Gallery, and Richmond Art Center.

Lucy Stark, Back from Sunset Swim, 2021, Acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist