The Repair Shop’s Lucia Scalisi takes on ‘challenging’ restoration

The Repair Shop: Lucia Scalisi reviews painting

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In tonight’s instalment of BBC One’s The Repair Shop, Jay Blades and the team welcomed Sue who had brought in her grandmother’s special painting. With the piece holding great sentimental value, she hoped that art restorer Lucia Scalisi would be able to save it. Although seeing the intense detail in the painting, it wasn’t an easy task.

On Wednesday evening, viewers tuned in to watch Jay Blades and his team help bring people’s sentimental objects back to their former glory after time had withered them away.

One of the guests who entered the workshop was Sue Saunters who had brought along her disintegrating painting that had been created by her grandmother Emily Chrisp.

The piece consisted of a large imaginary town with various shops, people, roads, landmarks, fields and had a large river running all the way through.

Seeing the large piece for the first time, Lucia was stumped at how busy the painting was as she commented on how much was going on.

Looking at the piece for the first time, she commented: “There’s a lot of detail Jay, from my work point of view I’ve really got a lot to do on this one, crikey.”

As Jay told Sue they’d never seen a piece of art like this before, he asked where it was from as Sue explained it was made by her grandmother.

Giving some background on her family member and the artist, she told Jay and Lucia that she inherited it after her grandmother died.

Speaking about her relative, she revealed that she had sold pieces to some pretty famous faces including Elton John and Twiggy.

She commented: “We had some exhibitions at her house and sitting around the table eating fish and chips with Twiggy and Elton was quite surreal!”

Saying her grandmother is still very dear to her heart, she told Jay and Lucia that the pieces flaking off of the painting feels as though she’s disappearing.

Sue said: “Little bits of her are just fading away and I really don’t want that to happen.”

Examining the painting, she told the team that she’d love for them to be able to replace the parts that are missing if they were able to.

Lucia said: “It’s going to be a challenge. But honestly, it’s going to be a delight working on it and seeing all this, it’s going to keep telling me stories all the way through.”

When working on the damaged painting, Lucia informed viewers that she was putting an adhesive on it to try and stick the parts that were flaking back onto the board before fixing the rest.

Once the pieces that were coming off were fixed back onto the painting, the restorer went in to try and fill in the parts that were missing.

She said: “I’ve started repainting and it’s quite a forgiving painting because it’s so busy, it is great. I’ve got several greens mixed up and several blues.

“I’m knocking out the big gaps in the painting then I’ll start putting some of the descriptive brush strokes on.”

After working on the piece it was time for it to be revealed to then be revealed to Sue.

Once it was unveiled, she was overwhelmed with the fix Lucia managed to do as she commented on the uncanny resemblance.

She said: “I’m astounded! You had nothing to go on, it’s absolutely amazing.

“It’s just beautiful, I don’t know where nan starts and Lucia starts, thank you so much.”

The Repair Shop continues Wednesdays on BBC One from 8pm

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