Lesley Luce - A Royal Dispatch - 24" Round

CA$2,500.00

Lesley Luce

A Royal Dispatch

24" Round

Wood panel, canvas, acrylic paint, ChromaLife100+ ink, paper, postage stamps from the artist’s personal collection, aluminum black frame and Art Glass AR70, approximately 1,920 paper fragments

$2,500

“I’m fascinated by the idea of stamps preserving small, overlooked stories that collectively shape national identity,” says Luce. “These tiny printed archives carry memory, mythology, politics, and public image all at once. They quietly document how a country chooses to represent itself over time.”

A Royal Dispatch - Composition 0224 by Lesley Luce, explores Canada’s evolving identity through the imagery and symbolism of its postage stamps, with the title referencing both the royal purple palette, long associated with power and status, and the act of sending and receiving mail. The composition brings together imagery reflecting Canada’s transportation networks, public symbolism, and shared cultural memory, assembling a visual archive of how the country has represented itself across generations. References to historic railway infrastructure and Terry Fox, both figures that connected the country from coast to coast in very different ways, appear alongside archival postage stamps spanning from pre-Confederation to the present day. The work also incorporates the duelling 1950s Queen Elizabeth II stamp portraits by Yousuf Karsh and Dorothy Wilding, whose designs reflected early debates around image-making, monarchy, and national representation. From a distance, the work appears as a bold geometric pattern. Up close, its intricate details reveal layered symbols, historical references, and visual fragments that together reflect the evolving stories shaping Canadian identity.

Lesley Luce

A Royal Dispatch

24" Round

Wood panel, canvas, acrylic paint, ChromaLife100+ ink, paper, postage stamps from the artist’s personal collection, aluminum black frame and Art Glass AR70, approximately 1,920 paper fragments

$2,500

“I’m fascinated by the idea of stamps preserving small, overlooked stories that collectively shape national identity,” says Luce. “These tiny printed archives carry memory, mythology, politics, and public image all at once. They quietly document how a country chooses to represent itself over time.”

A Royal Dispatch - Composition 0224 by Lesley Luce, explores Canada’s evolving identity through the imagery and symbolism of its postage stamps, with the title referencing both the royal purple palette, long associated with power and status, and the act of sending and receiving mail. The composition brings together imagery reflecting Canada’s transportation networks, public symbolism, and shared cultural memory, assembling a visual archive of how the country has represented itself across generations. References to historic railway infrastructure and Terry Fox, both figures that connected the country from coast to coast in very different ways, appear alongside archival postage stamps spanning from pre-Confederation to the present day. The work also incorporates the duelling 1950s Queen Elizabeth II stamp portraits by Yousuf Karsh and Dorothy Wilding, whose designs reflected early debates around image-making, monarchy, and national representation. From a distance, the work appears as a bold geometric pattern. Up close, its intricate details reveal layered symbols, historical references, and visual fragments that together reflect the evolving stories shaping Canadian identity.