Lucy Stein (b.1979, Oxford, UK) lives and works in St Just, West Cornwall, UK. She received a BA in Painting from The Glasgow School of Art in 2004, Scotland and went on to study at De Ateliers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2004-2006).
Across a twenty-year practice, Stein has developed an expansive body of conceptual work rooted in painting which embraces performance, film, writing and collaborative projects. Building upon rich painterly traditions and contemporary culture, Stein creates a world of stories. Narratives and imagery, which appear in her work, are drawn from Stein's study of psychoanalysis, feminist theory, histories and personal experience.
Embodying the concept of the unstable narrator, Stein creates her own mythology where different painterly styles coexist. She shifts selves, becoming ever more expressive, allowing herself to perform different roles. In layered explorations, Stein creates 'different levels of consciousness, so you can have infinite depths of pictorial space working together.'[1] Paintings speak to esoteric culture and medieval tableaus, extending from the canvas to hand painted ceramic tile works.
Stein has made many collaborative projects and performances, including ones with artists Nina Royle, Shana Moulton, Joanne Robertson and Maria Christoforidou. She met artist Carole Gibbons at Fuente Studios in Competa, Spain in 1998, who remains an influential presence. Stein has curated their works together in two exhibitions, one held during Glasgow International and the other at Gimpel Fils, London in 2012. Stein's current ongoing feminist project began in 2019 with Sarah Hartnett, drawn from dreams, images and thoughts relating to their pilgrimage of the lesser travelled Mary Ley Line. The journey has served as a generative catalyst for multiple collaborations, shows and events, as well as offering a space for transformative action. [2] Collaborative creative endeavours transpire through friendships, which then feed back into Stein's solo painting pursuits.
Across her practice Stein draws on the power and mystery of feminine qualities, using symbolism to explore a wide range of archetypes in depictions of goddesses and dolls. Psychologically charged works are informed by research but remain instinctive and personal - Stein paints to plunder her emotional experience. Highlighting dualities and paradoxes of the mind and body, she ultimately reveals the human being as subject to numerous forces playing out at once. [3]
Stein's first solo show with the gallery, La Muñeca opened in 2023. Stein exhibited at The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) and the Eden Project, Cornwall in 2023. Her solo exhibition Wet Room toured from Spike Island, Bristol to De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill UK (2021/22). Her work has been shown at Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (2022); Futura, Prague, Czech Republic (2020); Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, UK (2019); Galerie Gregor Staiger, Milan (2020) and Zurich (2021, 2018, 2015, 2013, 2011); Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Tate St Ives, UK (both 2018); NICC Brussels; TULCA festival, Galway; Newlyn Gallery, Penzance, UK (all 2017); Migros Museum, Zurich (2014); BROADWAY 1602, New York (2007,2009); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and ICA London (both 2006).