Artist Statement

Artist Lucy Schappy breathes life into organic and vibrant paintings roused by nature, dream, and memory. She experiments with paint, shape, line, and colour - releasing dynamic visions onto canvas. Her journey, both exploration and meditation, bestows prayers of gratitude upon a wise and spectacular world.


Working in oil or acrylic paint, she begins with loose and large shapes on the canvas, adding layers and gradually refining the rhythmic images. Influenced by Matisse and Diebenkorn’s figurative work, Klee’s experiments in colour and Ken Done’s childlike, colourful depictions of everyday life, she improvises and inquires. Conversation flows intuitively between brush and paint, guiding the artist, as she relies on this calm and spacious practice not only for craft but for her well-being as a whole.


Schappy’s method yields impressions informed by harmonious arrangements of light and space. Symbols and colour resonate in a dream-like world. Both the artist’s love of life and her wild optimism smile from the canvas. The paintings are a sensual playground of abstract works, each telling a unique story. Her most recent pieces explore the horse as a symbol of strength, beauty, and community. Gentle and grounded horses stand easily with each other in amicable herds, evoking peace. Schappy’s long-nurtured practice expertly distills their essence in simplified shapes and forms. Her figures feature strong women in sun-drenched scenes surrounded by abundant flowers or tropical gardens, places where she dreams of being. Art is escape from the mundane. Schappy’s landscapes reflect her love of the wild spaces that surround her on Vancouver and Quadra Island. Her whimsical depictions of imagined and remembered forests come from a lifetime of wandering in nature. Painting is play, a gift of joy the artist is glad to share


Schappy has said “the greatest joy comes from the act of discovery.” Her challenge is to stay open to what a painting wants to reveal, for the process never has a targeted outcome. The scene always changes, the magic always flows, dynamic and graceful, because the creative act is ever new, the graceful and rhythmic discoveries always resonant in the heart.