Lucy’s fascination with colour is evident in her paintings alongside a love of space, shape and pattern. As Cambridge languages graduate, Lucy’s passion for travel, storytelling and foreign culture shines through her work.
I really enjoyed visiting Lucy in her East London home studio last year and showcasing her joyful work in the gallery. Read on to find out more about her practice. I particularly like the best piece of artistic advice she has been given, I completely agree with it!
What sparks your initial ideas for a piece? Is it a feeling, an image, or something else entirely?
It could be a pattern, often a photo from life, or a found photo, or a mixture of memory and found images.
Do you have a specific routine or ritual to get into a creative head space?
Most ideas come while cycling to the studio, or the small space between waking and sleep, swimming, or in the shower, on a dog walk, very often in bed it seems just after waking or just before falling asleep.
Do you have a plan for a piece before you start, or do you allow it to develop organically?
There’s a plan, but it evolves.
What's your biggest "happy accident" that turned out amazing in a piece?
Not sure, I guess I had some splats on my blossoms and loved how it looked like a fallen petal in the wind, so I decided to go for full splatter. I loved the accidental vivacity of the blossoms.
Do you have any lucky tools or materials you can't work without?
Pretty basic, paintbrush and paint and canvas!
What's the most challenging part of your artistic process?
Deciding what to paint, what to put in, what to leave out. And staying true to what is me and not just what people want.
Is there a hidden meaning or symbolism in your work that viewers might miss at first glance?
I mean, food is food, flowers are flowers, people are people, but the food for me is union, nostalgia, memory, time, the sensation of it all, the feelings and flavours, time stopping, being present. The flowers bring joy and to me somehow stop the inevitable passing of time because they remain in bloom. People- their gestures, they mean different things to different people, but I am in love with how the body talks in ways words can't. Life is so full of calamity and friction within a growing family with kids trying to find themselves and the world being so hard, I try to pinpoint very tiny, soft beautiful moments and zone in on them. I need it, as much as I want to offer it.
What piece of yours are you most proud of, and why?
I’m really not sure, I love the success that the Sardines have had as they were sort of an idea from Louisa at Colours of Arley, but I love how I put the idea into motion, zoomed in and sort of made a naive, but bold painting, but there are others of Coco I love that have had no recognition, I’m not sure maybe some of the very early ones lie the Melon or the Mimosa that really excited me. I also loved the messy exaggeration of Winter Feast.
What are some tools or techniques you use that most people wouldn't expect?
I sometimes don’t like to see the brush stroke if it’s on a wall so I pour the paint onto the canvas and just rub it in with my hands in circles as if I were plastering a wall. And I layer colours like four times, then scratch in with the back of brush and keep moving with my hands to reveal the colours and to get an aged, deeper feel.
If you could have your art evoke one specific emotion in a viewer, what would it be? Joy. Pleasure. Nostalgia. Sorry that's three!
Who are your artistic heroes, and how have they influenced your work?
I am not very good at referencing, I should more, but I think Matisse and Ergon Schiele, and Rosie Wylie have had influences on me , then there’s Johanna Dumet a french artist in Berlin and of course a bit of Degas in the back of my head and Milton Avery and I really love Chantal Joffe and how eloquently she talks about art and painting - I love the speed and roughness of the work, the colours and gestures she captures.
Does your art ever surprise you with where it ends up taking you? Always.
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be doing?
Interior design is what I was doing, I would possibly have moved into set design for film, which I love, maybe finishing all those scripts and novels - that was my other calling, writing (and acting).
What are your ‘must have’ snacks and drinks when in the studio?
I have to have a tonne of rooibos tea, and jars of Brazil notes/cashews/ decaff coffee and water and some dark chocolate.
What's the best piece of artistic advice you've ever received?
Just keep painting .... also don’t think about it too much. I also love Picasso’s line that creativity comes while working, like the Italians say hunger comes while eating, you have to be doing it, to feel it.
You are hosting a dinner party and have invited 3 other artists (living or dead), who would be on the guest list?
Matisse, probably Degas and Chantal Joffe.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me Lucy! I loved all these insightful responses. I am not currently showing Lucy's work but you can find it on her website here.
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