Salvatore of Lucan (born 1994) (real name Salvatore Fullam) is an Irish artist from Lucan, the eponymous suburb of Dublin. The artist primarily paints large-scale works most of which focus on his own life and often explore themes of home, identity and relationships.[1] The Irish Museum of Modern Art classified his work as "expansive domestic scenes where realism meets the uncanny, and the familiar broaches the magical."[2]
Fullam is of mixed-race, being half Bangladeshi on his father's side and half Irish on his mother's. His parents met in Munich in the 1980s.[3] He did not know his father growing up and was raised by his mother, alongside his younger sister, in Lucan. He attended CBS Lucan.[4]
Fullam's uncle was a self-taught artist whose surrealist oil paintings were "all over" the house as he grew up. He remembers looking at them as a child and trying to figure out what their meaning was.[5]
Salvatore met his father for the first time in 2018 in New York, which he later used as a setting for the painting "Me and my Dad in McDonalds" (2018).[6] [5] Fullam mentioned that his father had been "an illegal immigrant for over half his life, leaving Bangladesh and going from country to country until finally ending up in America."[6]
In 2018, Fullam decided to start painting under the alias 'Salvatore of Lucan',[7] however, he is often asked where he is from, even though he is Irish. The fact that he was given an Italian name as a child complicated the issue growing up, as explained by the artist:
"...And also, I'm not Italian at all, I just have an Italian name. I used to have to tell my whole life story when people asked me where I was from. Also, I love Lucan. And I'm from there".
The naming format also reminded Fullam of renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, who were often known by their place of birth.[8]
According to the artist, he was not academically gifted and thus found it an "easy choice" to go to art college,[9] where he studied Fine Art Painting[4] but was initially interested in studying fashion.[5] He graduated from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in 2016.[10] As Fullam explained in a 2024 interview:
"I started my career by going on the dole and renting a studio that I rarely left. After about one or two years, I started getting into some group shows. Eventually I was given a show in Pallas Projects as part of their program there".[9]
Fullam's first show, entitled "Show of Himself", took place in Pallas Projects, Dublin in 2018.[1] In 2019, he won the Whyte's Award, was nominated for Hennessy Craig Award at the RHA, appeared in RTÉ's 'Exhibitionists - Road to the RHA' documentary and received the Arts Council's 'Next Generation Award'.[2] The artist participated in Culture Night 2020 as part of an Arts Council showcase of paintings that had been recently added to its collection.[11]
Fullam's first time exhibiting paintings outside of Ireland was at the Meštrović Pavilion in Zagreb as part of Pallas Projects '6th Biennial of Painting' in October 2021.[1]
He won the National Gallery of Ireland's Zurich Portrait Prize on 30 November 2021 for his submission "Me Ma Healing Me" (2020), which was inspired by his mother's use of sound healing and reiki to care for him.[12] [13] [14] [15] He had been nominated twice before for the same award.[2] [1]
Fullam's show Fancy Situations opened at Dublin's Kevin Kavanagh Gallery on 6 June 2024.[16] [17] [18]
Fullams' paintings have been noted to often consist of "figurative domestic scenes"[6] where "the familiar approaches the magical".[14] As he notes: "My day to day life is also a mix between realism and imagination. So, I depict it the same way I experience them in real life".[9]
Fullam has noted that he can spend weeks just on graph paper before he starts painting a large-scale work.[9]
Fullam remembers wanting to become a painter after his art teacher introduced him to artists such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and David Hockney in school. He subsequently discovered Egon Schiele himself.[5]
In creating the painting "Me Ma Healing Me", for which he won the Zurich Portrait Prize, Fullam explained how he "was inspired by the kind of uncanny, suspended feeling one finds in the alchemist paintings of Leonora Carrington".[14]