Lucila Zentner
The Enigma of Being Oneself
…how to be oneself and look it at the same time.
A first solo exhibition devoted to Lucila Zentner's ongoing Roo series — paintings exploring identity, family, memory and the absurdity of being oneself.
It started with a kangaroo mask.
Five years ago, Lucila Zentner's daughter made a kangaroo costume for an identity day at primary school. There was one problem — the eye holes were too high.
She walked around the family kitchen unable to see, dressed as a symbol of her Australian identity while blind to herself and the world around her. The contradiction stayed with Lucila. It became the starting point for The Enigma of Being Oneself.
Lucila began painting members of her own family wearing the kangaroo mask. Their faces disappeared, their individual identities seemingly removed — yet to Lucila they remained immediately recognisable.
From these portraits came another character: the travelling Roo. An anonymous figure who heads off alone in a little aqua car, appearing in landscapes inspired by places Lucila herself has travelled — from the Australian coast to South America. The places are real, but the paintings aren't intended simply to reproduce them. We see the world as Roo experiences it.
What does it actually mean to be yourself?
Selected works.
21 works in the exhibition
Discover all 21 works.
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Exhibition details.
Artist in attendance
Quay Quarter Tower, 50 Bridge St, Sydney NSW 2000
About Lucila Zentner.
Lucila Zentner is an Australian oil painter whose practice moves across portraiture, landscape, florals and her evolving series of kangaroo-masked figures. A 2025 Archibald Prize finalist, she has had work selected for more than twenty national competitions, including the Portia Geach Memorial Award, Salon des Refusés, Gosford Art Prize and Muswellbrook Art Prize.
Her works are held in private collections across Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and in the permanent collection of the Gippsland Art Gallery.
Alongside her art practice, Lucila works as a practising radiologist and nuclear-medicine specialist — two disciplines united by a lifelong fascination with looking, interpreting and understanding what lies beneath the surface.
Rather than prescribing a single interpretation of her paintings, Lucila wants each viewer to bring something of themselves to the work. For her, painting is a way of holding onto experiences, understanding them, and returning to them.
Enquire about a work.
For availability, private viewings, additional imagery or help selecting a work from the exhibition, the gallery team is here to assist.
Quay Quarter Tower, 50 Bridge St, Sydney NSW 2000
info@audreyfineart.com.au
(02) 9552 3018