Lucy Bell

Why is the material you are using important to your work?


Paint as material is important to my work because of the gesture, or lack thereof, it can reveal. Pieces of my works are thin and loose, revealing moments I was in action, in conversation with the paint and canvas. In other places the paint is thick and so blended together it almost seems as though I was never there. Painting in 2020, or in 2019 prior to COVID, is a much different question than it was 100 years ago. Why paint? What makes painting worthwhile when material based conceptual art is the dominant form now? What can the materiality of paint and oil say when put on a canvas? These are questions I am still seeking answers to.

How does the "concept/ content/ technique" framework manifest in your work?


This body of work is focused on women, more specifically women in farming, stillness vs movement, work vs leisure which becomes represented on canvas through my gestural or invisible brushwork. Together the content and method of painting make the concept the viewer extracts.

What is your favorite color? And why?


Indian yellow is the pigment name of my favorite color. I love the color of the sun setting, a fire pit glow, golden hills in summer, and my parents old kitchen, it gives me warmth and the feeling of life. However, the color I've been drawn most to in this body of works is alizarin crimson. I love this deep, almost wine red for its extremely translucent and slow drying qualities. Alizarin crimson is the base to almost all of the paintings which I feel unifies them on a subsurface level. I love layering it up to reveal the gesture marks below and it's the color I've been going to to bring life to figures or warm a violet hue.