Paula D. Lucas is a figurative artist whose work invites stillness. Her paintings do not shout. They rest. They wait. And then they open something deeper. Born and educated in Pennsylvania, Lucas studied painting at the Carnegie Institute, design and drawing at Carnegie Mellon University, and later completed her BA at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her MFA at Penn State. Her foundation is rigorous and grounded in tradition, but her work stretches past academia into something quietly observant—watchful, almost prayerful.
Lucas taught for years, most recently as an adjunct professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Her teaching covered painting, drawing, design, and art history—both at the university level and in Pittsburgh-area public schools and diocesan programs. Education seems to have been as much a part of her vocation as painting. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the Pittsburgh region, where she remains a quiet presence in the figurative art scene.
At the core of Lucas’s practice is an enduring interest in individuals and their relationships. Not in the grand gestures or obvious stories, but in what rests just beneath the surface—body language, unspoken thoughts, inner states. Her art explores how a pose or a glance can carry emotional weight. She’s interested in the unsaid, the immaterial, the spiritual current beneath the visible.
Her painting titled “Runner” is a clear example.
A boy, resting in a field after exertion. His limbs slack but composed. One knee drawn in, arms loosely draped. He’s not dramatic, not exhausted, but caught in a moment of inner pause. His gaze is downturned, his expression hard to pin—thoughtful, maybe puzzled. There’s a heaviness in the scene, but not from sadness. It’s the weight of contemplation.
Lucas writes that her goal is to “invite the viewer to celebrate the gifts of the good, the true and the beautiful.” This isn’t rhetoric. Her approach is grounded in a direct method of paint application, and a technique she describes as “a type of baroque tenebrism”—a dramatic use of light and shadow that harkens back to Caravaggio and Rembrandt. In Runner, light grazes the boy’s limbs, shirt, and face. The background—dark, almost stormlike—makes that light feel earned. It doesn’t just illuminate form, it gives it spiritual dimension.
Lucas uses the figure to say what words can’t. In this painting, the boy’s stillness is as loud as any motion. The light on his body seems to suggest more than just a physical rest. It could be the moment right before clarity. Or uncertainty. Or grace. You’re not told what he’s thinking. You’re only shown what his body reveals—that maybe he doesn’t know either.
This is part of what makes Lucas’s work so compelling. She doesn’t use the figure to push an agenda. She uses it to reflect the complexity of inner life. The figure in Runner is young, but not carefree. His socks are bunched. His shoes are worn. His body language is unguarded, but inward. Lucas captures a moment that doesn’t demand attention—it invites it.
There’s nothing trendy here. No splashy palette. No over-rendered polish. The brushwork is firm but not stiff. The textures are soft, but never vague. The grass, the shirt, the shadows—they all feel lived in. Lucas doesn’t flatten life into symbols. She lets it sit. She honors it with time and restraint.
While her work is figurative, it’s not tied to realism in a strict sense. There’s room for ambiguity, atmosphere, even abstraction in how she handles her backgrounds and transitions. But the anchor is always human. Always the person in the frame—and what might be stirring inside them.
This commitment to human inwardness runs through all of Lucas’s work. Whether she’s painting children, adults, or relationships in flux, her aim is to find meaning in the quiet moments. Not the climaxes, but the pauses. The gaps. The space between things.
There’s a humility to that approach. And it’s rare.
Paula D. Lucas’s paintings aren’t loud or immediate. They don’t chase trends or seek to provoke. They sit with you. And if you’re patient, they begin to unfold—slowly, quietly, and with depth.
That’s her strength. She pays attention. And she paints in a way that asks us to do the same.
