Lucy Bull (b. 1990, New York) has rapidly established herself as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary abstraction, developing a practice that redefines painting as an immersive, almost perceptual experience. Based in Los Angeles, Bull approaches the canvas not as a surface to depict the world, but as a field through which sensation, light, and memory are activated.

Introduction

Lucy Bull, born in New York in 1990 and currently residing in Los Angeles, emerges as one of the rising figures in the world of contemporary art. After earning her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, her paintings have been sought after for their ebullient and psychedelic qualities. Her creations recall the likes of Surrealistic landscapes, loose brushwork in opaque, unrealistic combinations, apparently products of a process-based meditation between impulse decision and proposed thinking.

Her work resists fixed interpretation. Instead, it unfolds as a dynamic encounter between viewer and image—an environment of color and movement that oscillates between presence and dissolution. Positioned within a lineage that extends from Color Field painting to the gestural abstractions of the late 20th century, Bull’s work nonetheless feels distinctly of its time: fluid, atmospheric, and deeply attuned to the instability of perception.

“It’s all about the speed and wrist gestures, the amount of paint on the brush. There’s this build-up of the layers and then sort of reductive techniques like scratching away or making marks.”

A Language of Gradation, Movement, and Light

Bull’s paintings are immediately recognizable for their luminous gradients, fluid transitions, and layered chromatic intensity. Rather than constructing compositions through line or form, she builds them through shifts in color and density, allowing hues to bleed, dissolve, and re-emerge across the surface. Her canvases often appear in a state of flux. Forms suggest themselves only to disappear, edges soften, and spatial boundaries become ambiguous. This ambiguity is central to her language: the viewer is invited not to read the painting, but to experience it—almost as one would experience light moving through space.

There is a subtle choreography at play, where gesture and control coexist. The paintings feel both deliberate and ephemeral, as though captured in the moment of becoming.

While Bull’s work is firmly rooted in abstraction, it often hovers at the threshold of figuration. Hints of landscape, body, or atmosphere emerge fleetingly, only to dissolve back into the field of color. This tension between recognition and loss is one of the defining qualities of her practice. Her paintings do not depict images; they generate them. The viewer’s eye continuously searches for anchors—shapes, horizons, depth—yet the painting resists stabilization. In this sense, Bull’s work engages with the psychology of looking, exploring how meaning is constructed and undone in real time.

Technique and Process

Bull works primarily in oil on canvas, employing a process that combines layering, blending, and erasure. Her surfaces are built through successive applications of paint, often reworked multiple times, creating a sense of depth that is less spatial than atmospheric.

The fluidity of her compositions is the result of both technical precision and openness to chance. Paint is pushed, pulled, and softened, allowing transitions to occur organically while maintaining an underlying structural coherence. The absence of hard edges and the continuous modulation of tone give her paintings their distinctive, almost cinematic quality. Light plays a crucial role—not as a depicted source, but as an internal condition of the painting itself.

Institutional Presence and Exhibitions

Lucy Bull’s ascent has been marked by a series of high-profile exhibitions that have positioned her at the forefront of a new generation of abstract painters. Her work has been exhibited internationally, with solo presentations in major gallery spaces and inclusion in significant group exhibitions that reflect the renewed vitality of abstraction today.

While her institutional presence is still in development—unsurprising given the relative youth of her career—her work has already entered important private and emerging public collections, signaling strong long-term recognition.

Lucy Bull’s works can be found in numerous public collections including: MAMCO Geneva, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Dallas Museum of Art and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.

Gallery Representation and Market Development

Bull is represented by leading galleries including David Kordansky as well as Xavier Hufkens. This level of representation, across major international platforms, reflects both critical acclaim and strong market confidence.

At its core, Lucy Bull’s practice is not about representation, but about experience. Her paintings operate as environments—spaces in which color, light, and gesture converge to produce a heightened state of awareness. In an age saturated with images, Bull offers something more elusive and, perhaps, more profound: a painting that cannot be easily fixed or consumed, but must be inhabited. Her work reminds us that seeing is not a passive act, but an active, shifting process—one that painting, at its most vital, continues to explore.

PART I: SUMMARY

Auction Market Overview

2025 AUCTION STATISTICS
Turnover: USD 2,853,065
-71.5% vs. 2024
# of lots sold: 5
Sell-Through Rate: 100%

MARKET SEGMENTATION
Hong-Kong (73%) / New-York (25%) / London (2%)

Lucy Bull made her auction debut at Sotheby’s New-York in May 2022, where one of her paintings, Special Guest from 2019 sold for USD 907,200, more than 10 times its high-estimates.

Her market has developed with remarkable intensity. Primary market demand is exceptionally high, with works often placed directly into major collections. On the secondary market, her paintings have achieved significant results early in her career, reinforcing her position as one of the most closely watched artists of her generation. Collectors are drawn to the experiential nature of her work—the way it transforms space and engages perception—while institutions recognize its contribution to the evolving language of contemporary abstraction.

Auction Summary

2025 Auction Highlights

5 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 2,853,065. With no lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 100%. The highest price was achieved by 9:59, a painting dated 2021, that sold at Sotheby’s in London, on 16 October 2025, for GBP 1,260,000 (USD 1,688,400).

2025 Top 3 Lots

This is the only lot that sold for more than USD 1 million, representing 59.2% of the total turnover for 2025.

2024 Auction Highlights

12 lots sold at auction in 2024 for a total turnover of USD 10.023,040. With 2 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 86%. A new record was achieved for the artist at Christie’s in Hong-Kong on 26 September 2024, when 18:50, a painting dated 2021 sold for HKD 18,525,000 (USD 2,379,260).

2024 Top 3 Lots

4 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a total turnover of USD 6,532,144, representing 65.2% of the total turnover for 2024.

2023 Auction Highlights

15 lots sold at auction in 2023 for a turnover of USD 7,368,961. With no lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 100%. A new auction record was set for the artist at Sotheby’s in Hong-Kong on 6 October 2023, when Flash Chamber, a painting dated 2020, sold for HKD 13,760,000 (USD 1,757,179).

2023 Top 3 Lots

3 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, for a cumulative turnover of USD 4,004,899, representing 54.3% of the total turnover for 2023.

2022 Auction Highlights

11 lots sold at auction in 2022 for a total turnover of USD 6,855,790. With 1 lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 92%. The highest price was achieved at Phillips in Hong-Kong on 22 June 2022, when 8:50, a painting dated 2020, sold for HKD 11,382,000 (USD 1,449,991). 2 lots sold for more than USD 1 million.

2022 Top 3 Lots

Top Lots

#1. 16:10, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,814,500
NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST

16:10 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:10, 2020
Oil on linen
93 1/8 x 53 7/8 inches (236.5 x 136.8 cm)
Signed and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

#2. Flash Chamber, 2020

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 13,760,000 / USD 1,757,179

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Flash Chamber | 雅室 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Flash Chamber, 2020
Oil on canvas
201 x 162.5 cm (79 1/8 x 64 inches)
Signed and dated 2020 on the reverse

#3. 9:59, 2021

Sotheby’s London: 16 October 2025
Estimated: GBP 300,000 – 500,000
GBP 1,260,000 / USD 1,688,400

9:59 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
9:59, 2021
Oil on canvas
96×54 inches (244×137 cm)
Signed and dated 2021 (on the reverse)

#4. 8:50, 2020

Phillips Hong-Kong: 22 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 11,382,000 / USD 1,449,991

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 3 June 2022 | Phillips

#5. Phoenix, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 8,000,000 – 15,000,000
HKD 10,650,000 / USD 1,364,509

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Phoenix, 2019
Oil on linen
81 1/2 x 57 1/2 inches (205.7 x 145 cm)
Signed and dated ‘LB 19’ (lower right)
Signed and dated invertedly ‘Lucy Bull 2018’ (on the reverse)

#6. Thin Skin, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 9,450,000 / USD 1,206,404

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Thin Skin, 2019
Oil on linen
70×50 inches (178 x 127.5 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LB 19 Thin Skin’ (on the reverse)

PART II: AUCTION RESULTS

2026 Auction Results

Untitled, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 March 2026
Estimated: HKD 1,800,000 – 2,800,000
HKD 2,286,000 / USD 291,955

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2019
Oil on linen
48×24 inches (121.9 x 61 cm)

2025 Auction Results

5 lots sold at auction in 2025 for a total turnover of USD 2,853,065. With no lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 100%. The highest price was achieved by 9:59, a painting dated 2021, that sold at Sotheby’s in London, on 16 October 2025, for GBP 1,260,000 (USD 1,688,400).

2025 Top 3 Lots

This is the only lot that sold for more than USD 1 million, representing 59.2% of the total turnover for 2025.

#1. 9:59, 2021

Sotheby’s London: 16 October 2025
Estimated: GBP 300,000 – 500,000
GBP 1,260,000 / USD 1,688,400

9:59 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
9:59, 2021
Oil on canvas
96×54 inches (244×137 cm)
Signed and dated 2021 (on the reverse)

USD 1 million

#2. 8:50, 2020

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 26 September 2025
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
HKD 4,699,000 / USD 603,985

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), 8:50 | Christie’s

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
8:50, 2020
Oil on canvas
36 5/8 x 116 3/4 inches (93 x 296.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)

#3. Light Rain, 2019

Phillips New-York: 19 November 2025
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 490,200

Lucy Bull Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale featuring Cera the Triceratops

LUCY BULL
Light Rain, 2019
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated “LB 2019 “Light Rain”” on the reverse

USD 100,000

#4. Untitled, 2019

Christie’s London: 6 March 2025
Estimated: 25,000 – 35,000
GBP 30,240 / USD 38,730

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2019
Oil on linen
12×9 inches (30.4 x 22.8 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2019’ (on the reverse)

#5. Untitled, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 26 September 2025
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 31,750

Untitled | Contemporary Curated | 2025 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Untitled, 2019
Oil on linen
21×9 inches (53.3 x 22.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2019 (on the reverse)

2024 Auction Results

12 lots sold at auction in 2024 for a total turnover of USD 10.023,040. With 2 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 86%. A new record was achieved for the artist at Christie’s in Hong-Kong on 26 September 2024, when 18:50, a painting dated 2021 sold for HKD 18,525,000 (USD 2,379,260). 4 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a total turnover of USD 6,532,144, representing 65.2% of the total turnover for 2024.

2024 Top 3 Lots

#1. 18:50, 2021

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 26 September 2024
Estimated: HKD 5,000,000 – 8,000,000
HKD 18,525,000 / USD 2,379,260
NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), 18:50 | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
18:50, 2021
Oil on canvas
70 1/8 x 120 7/8 inches (178×307 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2021’ (on the reverse)

#2. 16:10, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,814,500

16:10 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:10, 2020
Oil on linen
93 1/8 x 53 7/8 inches (236.5 x 136.8 cm)
Signed and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

#3. A New Dew, 2019

Christie’s New-York: 21 November 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 1,197,000

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), A New Dew | Christie’s

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
A New Dew, 2019
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LB “A New Dew” 2019’ (on the reverse)

#4. 10:00, 2021

Sotheby’s London: 25 June 2024
Estimated: GBP 350,000 – 550,000
GBP 900,000 / USD 1,141,384

10:00 | Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction, including the Ralph I. Goldenberg Collection | 2024 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
10:00, 2021
Oil on linen
47×48 inches (119.4 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2021 (on the reverse)

USD 1 million

#5. Loving Tongue, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 762,000

Loving Tongue | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Loving Tongue, 2019
Oil on linen
50×30 inches (127 x 76.2 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ’19 (on the reverse)

#6. Radiator, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
HKD 5,715,000 / USD 730,632

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Radiator 散熱器 | The Now Evening Auction | Contemporary Art | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Radiator, 2019
Oil on linen
128×76 cm (50 3/8 x 29 7/8 inches)
Signed and dated 19 on the reverse

#7. Stellar Head, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 11 November 2024
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 5,040,000 / USD 648,530

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Stellar Head 腦中繁星 | Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Stellar Head, 2019
Oil on canvas
50 x 60 1/8 inches (127 x 152.8 cm)
Signed and dated 19 (on the reverse)
Titled (on the stretcher)

#8. Claps Jaw, 2019

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 2,800,000 – 3,500,000
HKD 3,556,000 / USD 455,255

https://www.phillips.com/detail/lucy-bull/HK010124/17

#12. Untitled, 2020

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 200,000 – 400,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,298

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6486332

REPEAT SALE

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 400,000 – 600,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,559

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2020
Oil on linen
18×10 inches (45.8 x 25.5 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)

Lots Passed

Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 40,000
PASSED

https://www.phillips.com/detail/lucy-bull/NY010524/394

Untitled, 2019

Christie’s New-York: 13 March 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
PASSED

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6471939

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2019
Oil on linen
20 7/8 x 9 inches (53 x 22.9 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB ’19’ (on the reverse)

2023 Auction Results

15 lots sold at auction in 2023 for a turnover of USD 7,368,961.

With no lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 100%. A new auction record was set for the artist at Sotheby’s in Hong-Kong on 6 October 2023, when Flash Chamber, a painting dated 2020, sold for HKD 13,760,000 (USD 1,757,179). 3 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, for a cumulative turnover of USD 4,004,899, representing 54.3% of the total turnover for 2023.

2023 Top 3 Lots

#1. Flash Chamber, 2020

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 13,760,000 / USD 1,757,179

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Flash Chamber | 雅室 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Flash Chamber, 2020
Oil on canvas
201 x 162.5 cm (79 1/8 x 64 inches)
Signed and dated 2020 on the reverse

#2. Thin Skin, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 9,450,000 / USD 1,206,404

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Thin Skin, 2019
Oil on linen
70×50 inches (178 x 127.5 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LB 19 Thin Skin’ (on the reverse)

#3. Dark companion, 2020

Phillips New-York: 14 November 2023
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,041,400

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 32 November 2023 | Phillips

#4. Snail Effects, 2020

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 November 2023
Estimated: HKD 2,800,000 – 3,800,000
HKD 7,308,000 / USD 938,229

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Snail Effects, 2020
Oil on canvas
36×48 inches (91.5 x 122 cm)
Signed with artist’s signature, dated and titled ‘2020 “SNAIL EFFECTS”’ (on the reverse)

#5. The Morning Effect, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 6,604,000 / USD 841,263

Lucy Bull 露西・布爾 | The Morning Effect 晨朝效應 | 50th Anniversary Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
The Morning Effect, 2019
Oil on linen
50×30 inches (127 x 76.2 cm)
Initialed and dated 19; signed and dated 2019 on the reverse

#6. False Tail, 2020

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 4,826,000 / USD 614,784

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 7 March 2023 | Phillips

#7. Back to Nerve, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 November 2023
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 500,000
USD 533,400

Back to Nerve | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Back to Nerve, 2019
Oil on linen
50×33 inches (127×84 cm)a
Signed and dated 19 (on the reverse)

#8. Untitled, 2020

Christie’s New-York: 12 May 2023
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 81,900

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2020
Oil on canvas
15×12 inches (38.1 x 30.5 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)
Signed with the artist’s initials again, inscribed and dated again ‘June 9 2017 LB 2020’ (lower left side edge)

#9. Untitled, 2017

Christie’s London: 14 October 2023
Estimated: GBP 50,000 – 70,000
GBP 63,000 / USD 76,391

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2017
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 1/8 inches (101.6 x 76.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Lucy Bull 2017’ (on the overlap)

#10. Untitled, 2020

Christie’s New-York: 12 May 2023
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 63,000

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2020
Oil on canvas
20×10 inches (50.8 x 25.4 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)

#11. Untitled, 2020

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 November 2023
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 400,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,425

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2020
Oil on linen
12×9 inches (30.5 x 22.8 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)

#12. Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 8 March 2023
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 45,720

Lucy Bull – New Now New York Lot 36 March 2023 | Phillips

#13. Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 8 March 2023
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 40,640

Lucy Bull – New Now New York Lot 37 March 2023 | Phillips

#14. Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 27 September 2023
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 35,560

Lucy Bull – New Now New York Lot 159 September 2023 | Phillips

#15. Untitled (LB 129), 2019

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2023
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 31,750

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemp… Lot 352 November 2023 | Phillips

2022 Auction Results

11 lots sold at auction in 2022 for a total turnover of USD 6,855,790.

With 1 lot failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 92%. The highest price was achieved at Phillips in Hong-Kong on 22 June 2022, when 8:50, a painting dated 2020, sold for HKD 11,382,000 (USD 1,449,991). 2 lots sold for more than USD 1 million.

2022 Top 3 Lots

#1. 8:50, 2020

Phillips Hong-Kong: 22 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 11,382,000 / USD 1,449,991

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 3 June 2022 | Phillips

#2. Phoenix, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 8,000,000 – 15,000,000
HKD 10,650,000 / USD 1,364,509

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Phoenix, 2019
Oil on linen
81 1/2 x 57 1/2 inches (205.7 x 145 cm)
Signed and dated ‘LB 19’ (lower right)
Signed and dated invertedly ‘Lucy Bull 2018’ (on the reverse)

#3. Time Beads, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 7 October 2022
Estimated: HKD 800,000 – 1,200,000
HKD 7,560,000 / USD 962,996

Lucy Bull 露西・布爾 | Time Beads 時光珠子 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Time Beads, 2019
Oil on linen
40 x 30 1/8 inches (101.6 x 76.5 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 19 on the reverse

#4. Special Guest, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 May 2022
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 907,200

Special Guest | The Now Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Special Guest, 2019
Oil on linen
50×33 inches (127 x 83.8 cm)
Signed Lucy Bull, titled Special Guest and dated 19 (on the reverse)

#5. Giving Tree, 2019

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 4,662,000 / USD 599,398

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempor… Lot 4 December 2022 | Phillips

#6. 16:43, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 November 2022
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 529,200

16:43 | The Now Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:43, 2020
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Initialed LB and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

#7. Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2022
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 478,800

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 27 November 2022 | Phillips

#8. No More Blue Tomorrows, 2018

Christie’s London: 28 June 2022
Estimated: GBP 60,000 – 80,000
GBP 277,200 / USD 338,337

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
No More Blue Tomorrows, 2018
Oil on linen
42×42 inches (106.7 x 106.7 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 18’ (on the reverse)

#9. Untitled (Green Dot), 2019

Phillips New-York: 16 November 2022
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 94,500

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemp… Lot 301 November 2022 | Phillips

#10. Untitled (Green), 2017

Phillips New-York: 16 November 2022
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 69,300

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemp… Lot 314 November 2022 | Phillips

#11. Untitled, 2020

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 400,000 – 600,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,559

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Untitled, 2020
Oil on linen
18×10 inches (45.8 x 25.5 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 2020’ (on the reverse)

PART III: FOCUS

Record Breakers

Max Ernst, Bryce Canyon Translation, 1946. Museu de Arte Contemporaneo, São Paulo.
Image © Bridgeman Images. Art © 2025 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London

“I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.”

16:10, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,814,500
NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST

16:10 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:10, 2020
Oil on linen
93 1/8 x 53 7/8 inches (236.5 x 136.8 cm)
Signed and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

Crackling with dynamic energy, Lucy Bull’s 16:10 from 2020 fluctuates between a surrealist dreamscape, a synesthetic painterly composition, and a psychedelic experience. Rippling tessellations of brilliant vermillion, neon yellow, and fluorescent orange induce the viewer into a trance-like state, coalescing into a disorientating and meditative plane of experience. At nearly eight feet tall, the verticality of 16:10 engulfs the viewer, transporting one to a prismatic, otherworldly plane. In recent years, the young LA-based artist who is represented by David Kordansky Gallery has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art.

JASPER JOHNS, USUYUKI, 1979-1995. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S, NEW YORK FOR $3.3 MILLION IN OCTOBER 2020. PRIVATE COLLECTION. ART © 2024 JASPER JOHNS / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY

Bull’s approach to painting results from a careful mediation between precision and impulse. The artist builds on initial washes of loose brushwork in negotiation between association and abstraction: taking up to twenty layers of paint to create a work’s final surface, Bull meticulously builds up the layers and textures of a composition, then employs reductive techniques like scratching away to tease out fragments of forms. Bull’s painterly gravitas lies in her capacity to generate meaning via the mechanisms of shape, color, and texture alone. Speaking about her revelatory process, the artist has said, “Ultimately what I’m trying to do is get to the point where there is potential for new avenues of discovery. The scratching feels like excavation; older marks in the beginning layers get pulled to the foreground. It’s similar to Max Ernst’s technique of frottage. I relate to how he talks about being a spectator to the making of his own work. When things finally open up and click, it feels like magic.” (Lucy Bull, quoted in: “Getting Lost in the Brushstrokes: Lucy Bull Interviewed by John Garcia,” Bomb, 26 April 2021, online)

In the present work, bursts of electric yellow erupt from the center of the canvas, morphing into gauzy veils of scarlet, fuschia, and vermillion. The high-keyed palette is offset by wisps of cooler hues, producing a chemical transmutation of compelling psychological complexity. Bull’s gestural swaths of pigment are characterized by their delicate and scale-like textures, which stretch and contract against the bounds of the picture plane. These primordial contours inject 16:10 with a kinetic ebullience, drawing the eye to each swell and ripple. Within this nebulous interplay of form and color, Bull ignites associations with the organic and the cosmic, with fusion and rupture, as the painting unfurls before the viewer in all its impossible vitality.

Embodying the fundamental Surrealist interest in unlocking new subconscious potentialities, Lucy Buill’s ethereal works stimulate a delicate wavering between conscious and unconscious thought in the viewer. A kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chroma and texture, 16:10 exemplifies the mysticism of Lucy Bull’s enigmatic practice, engaging with the medium of painting as an experimentation with the ineffable possibilities of synesthetic perception.

Flash Chamber, 2020

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 October 2023
Estimated: HKD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
HKD 13,760,000 / USD 1,757,179

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Flash Chamber | 雅室 | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Flash Chamber, 2020
Oil on canvas
201 x 162.5 cm (79 1/8 x 64 inches)
Signed and dated 2020 on the reverse

A kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chroma and texture, Lucy Bull’s Flash Chamber (2020) unravels in the transcendental finesse of the young artist’s painterly hand, presenting an indelibly visceral sight that fluctuates between a surrealist dream, a synesthetic painterly composition, and a psychedelic experience. Ripples of magenta, yellow, and green simultaneously coalesce and collapse into an atmospheric abyss of color and form. This disorienting yet serene landscape seemingly dissolves time and space to offer a sublime meditation for the senses, a phenomenally immersive experience in a culture saturated with otherwise fleeting images and trends. Recently debuting with her first solo New York gallery exhibition in 2022 at David Kordansky, the young LA-based artist has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art, captivating audiences with a cosmic oeuvre of paintings, each of which crystallizes a new glimpse into the illusory and unconscious unknown.

Bull’s enigmatic paintings balance the chromatic vibrancy of color field paintings by the likes of Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, or Sam Gilliam with gestural markings that recall the Surrealist landscapes of Max Ernst, who developed the technique of grattage to record the grain of textured objects between layers of paint. Embodying the fundamental Surrealist interest in unlocking new subconscious potentialities, Bull’s ethereal paintings stimulate a delicate wavering between conscious and unconscious thought in the viewer. This visceral experience offers a mirror into Bull’s own process, which balances both calculation and impulse as the artist works to tease out fragments of forms from the abstract layers of her loose brushwork. With its amorphous collision of color and form, Flash Chamber brilliantly exemplifies the mysticism of Lucy Bull’s distinctly contemporary practice as it draws the viewer into a cosmic illusion of painterly transfiguration. Tessellations of scratched markings give way to underlying layers of paint, which Bull accumulates in daubed and gauzy veils; meanwhile, streaming gradations of color seamlessly flow into each other, allowing pink and red smears to bleed into scattered yellow smudges. By harmoniously teetering between the material realities of its pigment and surface and the subjective experiences it elicits, Flash Chamber accesses the sensitive liminality between conscious and subconscious states of being.

8:50, 2020

Phillips Hong-Kong: 22 June 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 11,382,000 / USD 1,449,991

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemporary … Lot 3 June 2022 | Phillips

A fine balance between acid trip and surrealist climax, Bull’s compositions burn the retina, more siren than artwork as we are entranced by their vivid tessellations of synaesthesia, and drawn into her colour fields that seem to defy the pictorial space and wrap us in their limitless undulations. Otherworldly and fantastical, our brains are forced into hyperdrive as we attempt to comprehend the symphonies of blushes that bleed into one another, almost redefining the essential qualities of colour itself. However, Bull is hesitant to take the mantle of a strict abstraction, instead acknowledging the work of the late British painter Howard Hodgkin as a forefather, mirroring his figuration within her fervent reveries, and claiming ‘I am a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.’ 

Bull’s work is defined by dialectic, opposition, contrast – precision and abandon, order and chaos, concord and discord. 8:50 stands as one of the artist’s largest visions, where forms and patterns seem to emerge to allow us grounding in the composition, only to then fall away as the kaleidoscopic sands of pigment shift eternal, forcing self-accusations of pareidolia. An Eleusinian Mystery, time and space are conquered by colour and sensation, made mechanical and played on loop, elliptical. This layered hierarchy that is found at the core of Bull’s work is a product of industry, repeatedly painting over works in small scratches until the piece reaches perfection in the artist’s strict specifications.

Yet her technique of addition through scratching is but a mere chimaera, as in reality she engages in a process of excavation when she does so: previous marks get dragged to the foreground, obscuring the boundaries between past and present, old and new. She points to the technique of frottage espoused by the German Surrealist Max Ernst, who would place paper upon various materials, then transpose their surfaces by rubbing pencil or crayon in his investigation of the subconscious. Nonetheless, these formal qualities are merely visual bait as the reality of 8:50 is found in the work’s raw emotion.

Forged in an ayahuascan caprice and made manifest by the artist’s boundless creative spirit, approaching the painting is akin to coming face to face with our own subconscious, a Rorschach-like experiment between artwork and spectator that makes the worlds of Michael Fried and Aldous Huxley come crashing together in ethereal harmony. The antithesis of hermetic, 8:50’s essence is found not on the canvas itself but in the experience of interaction with the canvas. Bull explains this as: ‘The work itself is so subjective, there isn’t just one narrative…Rich in so many associations, I never want to short-circuit any of my viewers in their viewing of the work by telling them what I see. I’m more interested in creating something that is more in-between and open-ended with multiple entry points.’ ⁱⁱⁱ. In a world of sensory overload – TikTok reels, endless advertisements and cacophonies of anxiety – Bull’s practice allows for mediation through submission. Like the Instagram Age’s answer to Jackson Pollock, the artist asks us to lose ourselves to find ourselves in her painting, promoting receptions that are visceral rather than conceptual.

Other Paintings

Light Rain, 2019

Phillips New-York: 19 November 2025
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 490,200

Lucy Bull Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale featuring Cera the Triceratops

LUCY BULL
Light Rain, 2019
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated “LB 2019 “Light Rain”” on the reverse

Painted in 2019, Lucy Bull’s monumental Light Rain radiates a hallucinatory brilliance, its kaleidoscopic palette unfurling like a visual symphony. Hypnotic in both chromatic intensity and technical mastery, the painting speaks in a newly forged language of abstraction—one that redefines its grammar for the twenty-first century. Bull fuses disciplined craftsmanship with fearless experimentation, her choreographed gestures detonating into fields of pure pictorial energy.

“I hope to transport people. That’s all I want to do is be transported and I hope people can get lost in [the paintings] and take pleasure in looking at them… I hope that they are as enigmatic to others as they are to me.”

Rooted in the lineage of modern abstraction, Light Rain channels the emotional charge of Lyrical Abstraction, prioritizing sensation over strict figuration. Bull’s months-long process—“building chaos, then finding my way back”—mirrors Gerhard Richter’s radical squeegee method in its embrace of unpredictability. Through years of experimentation, Bull has developed a full-bodied brushstroke that allows her to dab, twist, and scrape paint across the surface, clarifying swirls of color into forms that threaten recognizability before dissolving into ordered chaos.

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild,1992. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Image/Artwork: © Gerhard Richter 2025 (0114)

In Light Rain, the natural world serves only as a suggestive touchstone: fleeting associations emerge and evaporate, leading the viewer into a psychological realm where accumulations of marks oscillate between optical overload and glimpses of deliberate structure, always returning us to the material facts of pigment and surface. Feather- and scale-like textures materialize across an eruptive field of pictorial activity. A spectral birdlike face emerges subtly from the swirling chromatic tide, recalling the hybrid flora-fauna apparitions of Max Ernst’s Surrealist landscapes. Like Ernst, Bull conjures an otherworldly ecology—part hallucination, part natural history—where the boundaries between the real and imagined are in constant flux. These moments of near-recognition, followed by dissolution, transform viewing into an active, shifting search.

“I am a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.”

Bull’s approach is rooted in total immersion. Working from her lofted home studio, she often paints late into the night, describing these hours as “time stolen from sleep… a magical period… an easier time to get lost.” She refuses to paint in the presence of others, believing her idiosyncratic style emerges only when she can “unhinge.” Works are finished, she says, “when I get lost, when I lose track of how I made them.” 

[Left] Max Ernst, The Last Forest, 1960-1970. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Image: Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
[Right] Detail of the present work.

Her method is as much excavation as accretion. Repeatedly painting over and scratching into the surface, she drags earlier marks into the foreground, collapsing distinctions between past and present. This process recalls Ernst’s frottage technique—in which paper is placed over textured surfaces and rubbed with pencil or crayon to transfer their patterns—an approach he used to draw out chance imagery from the subconscious. Bull’s work similarly embraces automatism and Ernst’s development of grattage (from the French gratter, “to scrape”), a method of transferring the grain of textured objects between layers of paint. “The scratching feels like excavation,” she notes. “I relate to how [Ernst] talks about being a spectator to the making of his own work. When things finally open up and click, it feels like magic.”

“It’s more about psychic energy than anything. I allow myself to get lost in the making of the paintings, which allows me time to enter this sort of fugue state… It can be so tempting to take it further… opening up new avenues of exploration.”

Suspended between Surrealist dreamscape and psychedelic reverie, Bull’s paintings court both conscious and subconscious perception. Her stated goal is to “titillate the senses… draw people closer,” cultivating the kind of prolonged looking that allows worlds to materialize and vanish. Ultimately, the power of Light Rain lies in its open-ended encounter. Bull resists prescribing a single reading: “I never want to short-circuit… by telling them what I see.”

A New Dew, 2019

Christie’s New-York: 21 November 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 1,197,000

LUCY BULL (B. 1990), A New Dew | Christie’s

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
A New Dew, 2019
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LB “A New Dew” 2019’ (on the reverse)

Lucy Bull’s monumental A New Dew resonates with vibrant color, exciting a bacchanalia of kaleidoscopic psychedelia to thrill the senses. Hypnotic in both its chromatic exuberance and technical brilliance, Bull presents a newly-invented visual language, revolutionizing the grammar of abstraction for the contemporary era. Building on the legacy of contemporary abstraction, the bright fluorescence of the yellow pigments in the upper register contrasted with areas of blue and red similarly recall Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bilds, particularly from the early 1990s.

In fact, A New Dew compares to Richter’s famous abstract series in more ways than just visually—Bull’s innovative painterly technique recalls the German artist’s radical wielding of squeegee and spatula. Bull describes her painstaking, months-long process “like I’m building chaos, then I have to find my way back” (L. Bull, quoted in Taylor Dafoe, “Collectors stampeding to Lucy Bull’s ‘visionary’ abstractions,” The Art Newspaper, 17 May 2024, online). Through years of practiced experimentation, the artist discovered a novel, full-bodied brushstroke, allowing her to dab, twist and scrape the paint across the surface.  Each manipulation of pigment clarifies her swirls of color into forms that threaten to resolve into recognizability before dissolving back into the composition’s ordered chaos. Bull pushes her paint brush to the extreme, eventually losing all bristles from the instrument; with the now-naked metal instrument, she then scrapes away built up layers to alchemize her work into its final illusory form reminiscent of the hypnotizing reflective pools of Claude Monet.

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1987. Private Collection. © Gerhard Richter 2024 (0147).

Bull approaches the canvas with resolute determination, fully immersing herself into her practice. Her studio exists within her lofted two-story home, muddying boundaries between the personal and the professional. Bull describes her intense focus, noting how she often works late into the night.

“It’s this magical period of time where you’re completely alone, and it feels almost like time stolen from sleep. There’s something really empowering about not being asleep. It seems almost wrong that you’re finishing a painting at that hour. Maybe it’s also an easier time to get lost.”

Her obsessive practice reminds of Yayoi Kusama’s mediative endurance producing her abstract Infinity Nets, the Japanese artist also furiously working into the early morning hours. Bull refuses to paint in the presence of anyone else, believing that her idiosyncratic style can only emerge when she is able to completely “unhinge.” After months of additions and subtractions, she finally decides when a canvas is finished. A singular voice in contemporary abstract painting, Lucy Bull’s dynamic practice explores both the formal and experimental elements of her medium. A New Dew demonstrates the fruits of her investigations, her choreographic gestures erupting into colorful fields of pictorial energy. Much feted, Bull’s oeuvre has accessioned into the permanent collections of many prestigious institutions, including  Baltimore Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; MAMCO, Geneva; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Walth Massachusetts. The artist’s first museum survey in the United States, “Lucy Bull: The Garden of Forking Paths,” opens at ICA Miami this December.

Weatherman, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 21 November 2024
Estimated: USD 400,ooo – 600,000
USD 330,000

Weatherman | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Weatherman, 2019
Oil on linen
50×33 inches (127 x  83.8 cm)

Ripples of electric blue and vivid red cascade through expertly layered illusionist shapes of green in Lucy Bull’s Weathermen from 2019, a mesmerizing example of her abstract paintings which realms akin to a psychedelic journey or a profound dreamscape. Coalescing and collapsing into an atmospheric abyss of color and form, this disorienting yet tranquil retreat into visual splendor offers a mystical meditation for the senses, creating a remarkably immersive experience in a world inundated with ephemeral images and trends. A centerpiece of Bull’s 2019 solo exhibition at High Art Gallery in Paris, Weathermen showcases the artist’s transcendent skill, as the intricate patterns and exuberant hues guide the viewer through the ebb and flow of the dreamlike experience that its composition evokes.

“I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much-prolonged attention to paintings on walls and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.”

Max Ernst, Europe after the Rain, 1940-42. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. Art © 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Situated in the visceral space between surrealist landscapes and psychedelic dreamland, Bull’s abstract compositions draw the viewer into a hypnotic trance of sensory experience. Drawing from a wide range of art historical influences, Bull’s captivating paintings harmoniously blend the vivid color fields reminiscent of color field artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Gilliam, with gestural marks that recall the Surrealist landscapes of Max Ernst, who developed the technique of grattage to record the grain of textured objects between layers of paint. Embodying the core Surrealist pursuit of unlocking latent subconscious potential, Bull’s ethereal creations inspire a delicate interplay between conscious and subconscious thought in the observer. This visceral engagement reflects Bull’s own artistic process, which navigates the balance between intention and spontaneity, as she uncovers fragments of forms from the abstract layers of her fluid brushwork. In the artist’s own words, “I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.” (The artist in conversation with Ophelia Sanderson, “Getting Lost in the Enigmatic Paintings of Lucy Bull,” Whitewall Magazine, 18 November 2021 (online)) In Weathermen, the artist continues to engage the medium of painting as both choreography of and experimentation with the ineffable possibilities of synesthetic perception, using her sublime fluency in color and texture to play gentle tricks on our eye, and with it, our mind.

10:00, 2021

Sotheby’s London: 25 June 2024
Estimated: GBP 350,000 – 550,000
GBP 900,000 / USD 1,141,384

10:00 | Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction, including the Ralph I. Goldenberg Collection | 2024 | Sotheby’s

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
10:00, 2021
Oil on linen
47×48 inches (119.4 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2021 (on the reverse)

Drenching the canvas with a cacophony of riotous color, Lucy Bull produces elemental paintings that pulsate with an unencumbered energy. Self-contained yet intuitively open-ended, 10:00 is a surrealist dreamscape espousing a poetic painterly composition, one that celebrates the artist’s invented handling of paint in all its glory. Within this nebulous interplay of form and color, Bull ignites associations with the organic and the cosmic, with fusion and rupture, as the painting unfurls before the viewer in all its emotional vitality.

LEONORA CARRINGTON, EL MUNDO MÁGICO DE LOS MAYAS (THE MAGICAL WORLD OF THE MAYANS), 1963–64. MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTROPOLOGIA E HISTORIA, MEXICO CITY. IMAGE © SCHALKWIJK / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 LEONORA CARRINGTON / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK Bob Schalkwijk / Orange Logic

Bull often titles her paintings for the times at which they were completed, if not for other fleeting phrases or neologisms that enter her periphery. Within 10:00, form and color coalesce to produce a homogeneous surface, psychedelic and hypnotic in nature. Each of her works begins with an initial wash of loose, expressive brushstrokes, laying the groundwork for a sophisticated interplay between realism and abstraction. Harnessing a process called frottage, adapted by Max Ernst, Bull rigorously builds up layer upon layer, then etches the surface of her paintings to reveal earlier passages, and in doing so, unleashes hauntingly beautiful abstract and surrealist landscapes. This deliberate act of erasure reveals tantalizing fragments of forms hidden beneath the surface, adding depth and complexity. Only occasionally does Bull use brushes in a conventional way, preferring to dab, stab, twist and scrape her paint instead.

“It’s a dance between more compulsive, spontaneous mark-making and reflective sort of teasing out of various associations… Then I go back in with more automatic painting. Eventually, the older layers start to act as a relief. It becomes this interwoven experience of surprising landscapes or dreamscapes.”

Max Ernst, The Last Forest, 1960-70 Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Image: © Bridgeman Images 2024 / Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024 Bridgeman Images

Moving constantly and rhythmically between multiple paintings at any given time, Bull’s artistic practice emerges from a masterful negotiation between meticulous precision and spontaneous impulse. The artist comments: “I work for long stretches of time. Sometimes I have to work all day to get to a place where I’m feeling loose and tapping into the right head space… Some days, I’m just laying out all this paint that I’m going to completely obliterate the next day” (Ibid.). The result – rippling tessellations of brilliant vermillion, neon yellow, and fluorescent blue – induces the viewer into a trance-like state, as cosmic forms erupt from the center of the canvas, morphing into gauzy veils of scarlet and fuchsia. The high-keyed palette is offset by wisps of cooler hues, producing an alchemical transmutation of compelling psychological complexity. Bull’s move from New York to Los Angeles influenced the artist’s palette in a profound way.

“I fell in love with the light and the flora and fauna here… There’s something about the sun in Los Angeles and how it bleaches everything out.” 

Further inspiration stems from her family – Bull’s mother, a painter and multimedia artist who would design textiles and dye fabrics when Bull was a child; and Bull’s father, a documentary filmmaker, worked closely with painter and film theorist Manny Farber. Indeed, primordial contours inject 10:00 with a kinetic ebullience, drawing the eye to each ripple of pigment and crescendo of hues, in which colors ebb and flow, swell and release, collide and crash to ricochet the viewer into abstract oblivion.

The present work was produced on the occasion of the Artists Inspired By Music: Interscope Reimagined exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 2022, in which artists including Ed Ruscha, Amoako Boafo, Kehinde Wiley and Anna Weyant worked in tandem with music that inspires them. The exhibition came about as a celebration of the music label’s 30th anniversary. Among the artists referenced in the show were Dr Dre, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Nine Inch Nails, and Lady Gaga.

10:00 is a re-interpretation of Ska Punk band No Doubt’s song “Spiderwebs” – a raucous and unapologetic record, the opening lines of which are:
“You think that we connect
That the chemistry’s correct
Your words walk right through my ears
Presuming I like what I hear”

Engaging with the medium of painting as a chemical experimentation with the ineffable possibilities of synesthetic perception, the true gravitas of Bull’s painting lies in her extraordinary ability to evoke meaning solely through the interplay of shape, color, and texture.

Lucy Bull photographed with members of No Doubt, alongside the present work installed in Los Angeles, LACMA, Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined, 2022

A kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chroma and texture, 10:00 exemplifies the mysticism of Bull’s enigmatic practice, in which her ethereal works stimulate a delicate wavering between conscious and unconscious thought in the viewer. Bull’s championing of abstraction has resulted in her astronomical rise in the art world. In 2023 Bull was awarded a pair of solo exhibitions at the Shanghai private institutions, The Long Museum and Pond Society, as well as institutional shows at The Warehouse in Dallas. Bull recently exhibited her third solo exhibition with David Kordansky in Los Angeles. Ash Tree ran from May to June this year, cementing her status as one of the most exciting abstract painters working today.

Claps Jaw, 2019

Phillips Hong-Kong: 31 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 2,800,000 – 3,500,000
HKD 3,556,000 / USD 455,255

https://www.phillips.com/detail/lucy-bull/HK010124/17

Lucy Bull’s practice is one that reflects the visceral experience of color and form, engaging with an abstract color palette, evoking a response that is more sensory than rational. Her works, rich in chromatic complexity, invite viewers to a realm of visual meditation, where the act of viewing becomes an experience in itself. Claps Jaw shines as a strikingly vibrant example of the artist’s profound dedication to abstraction and the exploration of colors, in which her canvas transforms into a captivating realm of visual stimuli, eliciting a mesmerizing interplay with the senses.

The present work instantaneously draws one into the untamed depths of a lush wilderness. As the title suggests, a jaw clap is usually perceived as an aggressive signal made by animals to ward off danger and establish territorial boundaries. Lucy Bull has created a symphony of motion and intensity to draw the viewer into a visual feast, reminiscent of the expansive wilderness oasis of untamed and unspoiled natural beauty. The colors appear to be in a constant state of flux, akin to mesmerizing kaleidoscopic patterns that effortlessly dance and shift before our eyes. The opulent greens, and chartreuse yellows intertwine with deliberate strokes of mahogany and tantalizing hints of peacock blue, creating a dynamic dimension that defies static interpretations. The landscape unfolds in Claps Jaw, where Bull conjures up an imaginary world of dense forests with towering trees and a rich variety of flora and fauna, with majestic mountains piercing the sky and pristine lakes and rivers meandering throughout. Each brushstroke, meticulously choreographed, adds to the captivating allure of Claps Jaw. Just like the enchanting wilderness, the present work exudes an awe-inspiring enigma with Bull’s mastery of colors and forms, evoking a raw power that resonates deep within.

Joan Mitchell, Grandes Carrières, circa 1962, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image/Artwork: © Estate of Joan Mitchell

Delving into the realm of emotional expressions, one cannot help but be reminded of the captivating spirit of the Lyrical Abstraction movement. This artistic endeavor sought to encapsulate the raw spontaneity of  artists’ emotions and gestures, infusing each brushstroke with a profound sense of vitality and unrestrained creative energy. Like the works of Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, the artist prioritizes emotional intensity over figurative accuracy. The gestural brushwork and the richness of the visual field can draw a parallel with the Abstract Expressionists, who embraced the canvas as an arena to act upon. As witnessed in Joan Mitchell’s Grandes Carrières, her treatment of the intense colors, gestural brushstrokes, and the mystifying dimensions on the canvas are all well echoed in the work of Lucy Bull. The rich tapestry of blues, reds, greens, and yellows are masterfully orchestrated, evoking a sense of liberated spirituality. The colors dance harmoniously and mirror the boundless freedom of the human spirit.

“Film is probably what inspires me most. It’s my biggest hobby. It’s also my favorite thinking space. I love going to the movies and being in a crowd of strangers with the lights out, surrounded by color. Afterwards, I always have so many ideas- usually intangible sensations that I want to explore. The mere attempt to translate those fleeting sensations can be a starting point for me.”

The uniqueness of Claps Jaw lies in its ability to partake in an enthralling “timed release” of visual experiences. Much like how a film unfolds over time, with its narrative revealed gradually, Claps Jaw slowly unveils its profound depth and intricate complexity, unfurling all sorts of associations the longer one gazes upon its mesmerizing details. This temporal element in Bull’s work holds utmost significance as it beckons the true essence of the piece to be discovered not in a passing glance, but through prolonged and sustained engagement. She creates a possibility in which her painting morphs and transforms through the color and also the mark making, with all the repetition beginning to act like fractals so that one gets lost in the static texture. In this immersive interaction, the viewer transcends the role of a mere observer and becomes an active participant, continuously being welcomed into the ever-unfolding narrative of the work. Similar to how psychedelics open up a different part of one’s brain, Lucy Bull’s sonic landscape like Claps Jaw opens up a myriad of sensory experiences that explores the unknown.

Loving Tongue, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 762,000

Loving Tongue | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Loving Tongue, 2019
Oil on linen
50×30 inches (127 x 76.2 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ’19 (on the reverse)

“I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.”

MAX ERNST, THE EYE OF SILENCE, 1944. COLLECTION OF THE MILDRED LANE KEMPER ART MUSEUM, ST. LOUIS © 2022 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

Radiator, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 3,000,000 – 5,000,000
HKD 5,715,000 / USD 730,632

Lucy Bull 露西 · 布爾 | Radiator 散熱器 | The Now Evening Auction | Contemporary Art | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Radiator, 2019
Oil on linen
50 3/8 x 29 7/8 inches (128×76 cm)
Signed and dated 19 on the reverse

Dazzling in its chromatic complexity and imbuing a transcendental psychedelic effect, Radiator presents a magnificent vista of variegated abstraction in saturated hues, a testament to Lucy Bull’s captivating painterly finesse. Offering glimpses into the illusory and unconscious realms, Radiator ripples in moody hues of blood red, acid yellow and electric blue to produce an atmospheric abyss of surging forms. Lush shapes of undefined lines slip and recede into kaleidoscopic gradations of color, coalescing within one disorientating and meditative plane of experience. Impressive in its gestural power, the present work delivers a theatrical play of chance and control, culminating in a spectacular harmony of vivid color. A highlight of the young artist’s enigmatic oeuvre, Radiator brilliantly exemplifies the mysticism of Lucy Bull’s distinctly contemporary practice as it draws the viewer into a cosmic illusion of painterly transfiguration.

Bull’s esoteric paintings balance the chromatic vibrancy of color field paintings by the likes of Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, or Sam Gilliam with gestural markings that recall the Surrealist landscapes of Max Ernst, who developed the technique of grattage to record the grain of textured objects between layers of paint. Bull’s accumulations of marks evade rational logic, yet fragments of abstract forms emerge from the artist’s loose brushwork, inviting the viewer into a visceral experience.

“I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.”

Tessellations of scratched markings give way to underlying layers of paint, which Bull accumulates in daubed and gauzy veils; meanwhile, streaming gradations of color seamlessly flow into each other, allowing orange and blue smears to bleed into scattered yellow smudges. By harmoniously teetering between the material realities of its pigment and surface and the subjective experiences it elicits, Radiator accesses the sensitive liminality between conscious and subconscious states of being. Titillating, immersive and mystical, Radiator reveals a hard fought-negotiation between paint and painter, precision and abandon, opening up a limitless number of associations and fleeting perceptual experiences. With her recently closed solo exhibition at the Long Museum, Shanghai, the young LA-based artist has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art, captivating audiences with a cosmic oeuvre of paintings, each of which crystallises a new glimpse into the illusory and unconscious unknown.

Dark companion, 2020

Phillips New-York: 14 November 2023
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,041,400

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 32 November 2023 | Phillips

Diaphanous webs of vibrant color overtake the surface of Lucy Bull’s Dark Companion, 2020. Bull’s marks glitter and shift in thin gauzes of gold, coral, green, and blue, stretching and waving, threadlike, in layers of bioluminescent oils. The visual effect is somewhere between that of a Y2K desktop screensaver and the undulating fins of a deep sea creature—a tension between digital and natural, synthetic and organic associations that pervades Bull’s abstract oeuvre. The meditative canvas, open to prolonged contemplation and multivalent interpretation, gives life to the wanderings of a musing mind.

The viewer is hypnotized as they wander throughout the work, stepping into a universe in which neither time nor space are tangible, much less linear. Bull intuitively builds juxtapositions of light and dark color, in flashes of contrast which draw the eye along the featherlight golden strokes of her paintbrush. A base layer of navy blue, nearly black, lightens into bursts of bright teal; areas of slate grey dapple into golden yellow and fluorescent orange. Lemon yellow and hot pink spark across the canvas, while touches of white and lime green patter into small crescents, like the surfing edges of waves, or scales of a glistening dark creature. Bull’s painted “companion” is all-enveloping, and the viewer is happy to be lost in its depths.

Max Ernst, Profanation of the Spring, 1945. Private Collection. Artwork: © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 

The cosmos Bull creates calls on the legacies of Surrealist artists, such as Max Ernst, who let the processes of the unconscious mind guide their artistic practice. Surrealist painters let the paint, brush, and gesture lead the way, with as little conscious intervention as possible. Bull cites Ernst’s experience of “being a spectator to the making of his own work” as akin to her own process. “When things finally open up and click,” she says, “it feels like magic.” Dark Companion is a mesmerizing journey through the depths of emotion and imagination, a testament to the power of art to transport us beyond the limits of language and into the uncharted territories of the mind. Bull “makes room for both precision and abandon, inviting viewers to participate in ever-unfinished processes of creation that she choreographs but never fully controls.”

Thin Skin, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: HKD 7,000,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 9,450,000 / USD 1,206,404

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Thin Skin, 2019
Oil on linen
70×50 inches (178 x 127.5 cm)
Signed with artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LB 19 Thin Skin’ (on the reverse)

The Morning Effect, 2019

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 5 April 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
HKD 6,604,000 / USD 841,263

Lucy Bull 露西・布爾 | The Morning Effect 晨朝效應 | 50th Anniversary Contemporary Evening Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
The Morning Effect, 2019
Oil on linen
50×30 inches (127 x 76.2 cm)
Initialed and dated 19; signed and dated 2019 on the reverse

Situated in the visceral space between surrealist landscapes and psychedelic dreamland, Lucy Bull’s abstract compositions draw the viewer into a hypnotic trance of sensory experience. Guided through undefined lines and swirls of infinite shapes by Bull’s unparalleled dexterity, The Morning Effect (2019) is a prime example of the artist electric yet inexplicably soothing compositions. Ripples of electric blue and vivid red cascade through Bull’s expertly layered illusionist shapes of green, simultaneously coalescing and collapsing into an atmospheric abyss of colour and form. This disorienting yet serene landscape seemingly dissolves time and space to offer a sublime meditation for the senses, a phenomenally immersive experience in a culture saturated with otherwise fleeting images and trends. Recently debuting with her first solo New York gallery exhibition in 2022 at David Kordansky, the young LA-based artist has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art, captivating audiences with a cosmic oeuvre of paintings, each of which crystallizes a new glimpse into the illusory and unconscious unknown.

Balancing the chromatic vibrancy of colour field paintings by the likes of Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, or Sam Gilliam, Bull’s enigmatic paintings are the result of a careful mediation between precision and impulse. First employing loose brushwork, the artist then builds upon it, layer by layer, until she finally reaches a trance-like abstraction. This negotiation between materials draws the viewer into Bull’s accumulated process of creation, becoming progressively more lost in the hypnotic trance it induces. Taking somewhere between four to twenty layers of paint to create a work’s final surface, Bull meticulously builds up the layers and textures of a composition, to then employ reductive techniques like scratching away.

False Tail, 2020

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 4,826,000 / USD 614,784

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contemporary… Lot 7 March 2023 | Phillips

Vibrant, fantastical and otherworldly, Lucy Bull’s False Tail is a dazzling field of shape and color, featuring fiery reds amidst lush green forestry. The title itself suggests a rather ambiguous implication, with the phrase itself being a double entendre: false tail – false tale, evocative of wild animals hidden within the depths of the woods, or a glimpse of a mermaid’s tail within pooling waters. Stunning the beholder upon entrance, the visceral impression of False Tail’s highly synthetic color palettes and shapes contradict rationality and order and are often described as dynamic, sonic, pulsing to each individual. First unveiled in a group exhibition with Almine Rech Gallery, New York in 2020, False Tail is captivating, enigmatic, and fantastical, and stands as a prime example of her psychedelic works that play with dynamic texture, weight, and space. Bull’s canvases overflow with detail, forming an entrancing viewing experience that titillate the senses.

In the presence of False Tail, there is a disrupting overload of visuals that excites and attacks the optical senses. Bull’s resistance to defy rationality is clear with the accumulations of disruptive marks, guiding one to draw focus on the primary contours that form art – that is, materiality, color, pigment, medium, surface, brushwork – rather than a depiction of reality in the making. Ripples of hypnotic waves reveal discernible traces of planning and negotiations with the medium, creating a remarkable visual effect that oscillates between physical imprints of the paintbrush and a psychedelic vision.

Irregularity is instilled in Bull’s formula for her paintings, the distortion in the atmospheric composition complements the unexpected color palette that seemingly abides to its own law and order. The painting opens up a plethora of possibilities and associations unique to the eye of the beholder. Defying definite interpretations, Bull’s works morph into an infinite number of new transformations as they shapeshift under every angle. These fantastical landscapes exist outside of time and space in its own universe, where transience and infinitude coexist.

Giving Tree, 2019

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 4,662,000 / USD 599,398

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempor… Lot 4 December 2022 | Phillips

Otherworldly and fantastical, Bull’s visionary paintings are dazzling fields of shape and color that form vivid tessellations of synesthesia. Her abstract works play with dynamic texture, weight, and space, creating canvases that overflow with detail, forming an entrancing viewing experience that titillate the senses.

Highly evocative, Bull’s kaleidoscopic visions constantly change before your eyes. Alluding to a poignant children’s tale of the same title, Giving Tree emits an ethereal glow from within, its neon colours resplendent in contrast with deeper shades of pine greens and Prussian blues. As one grapples with various associations in their minds for the work – whether it be gentle branches hanging from a mossy tree trunk, or a phoenix about to spread its glowing wings – each image seems to concretize; yet like fleeting mirages, its true identity is impossible to decipher. Defying definite interpretations, Bull’s works morph into an infinite number of new transformations as they shapeshift under every angle. These fantastical landscapes exist outside of time and space in its own universe, where transience and infinitude coexist.

Bull’s paintings are a dance between impulse and constraint. Ripples of hypnotic waves reveal discernible traces of planning and negotiations with the medium itself, leaving remarkable layers of colour that oscillate between physical imprints of the paintbrush and a psychedelic vision.

“Every impulsive layer of mark-making is countered with a more calculated response. It goes in waves.”

Meticulously applied, each of Bull’s paintings comprises somewhere between four to twenty layers of paint. Painting with great speed and wispy wrist gestures, Bull gradually creates a build-up of colors, yet returns to remove and scratch away at the surface. This additive and reductive creative method showcases the artist’s unmatchable prowess in manipulating her medium. With each twisting and dabbing movement of the brush, gestural marks and scratches intermix, coalescing into an overload of visual sensation. Starting with a base, such as a shade of rich green in Giving Tree, Bull begins a process of ‘breaking it down’ with a variety of tools, thereby ‘activating the older layers’, yet one is unable to discern which layer came first and last. Swaths of color engage in a psychedelic interplay of tones where vibrant hues combine and separate, congeal and thin out, each swirl vying separately for the spotlight all at once.

Phoenix, 2019

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 8,000,000 – 15,000,000
HKD 10,650,000 / USD 1,364,509

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
Phoenix, 2019
Oil on linen
81 1/2 x 57 1/2 inches (205.7 x 145 cm)
Signed and dated ‘LB 19’ (lower right)
Signed and dated invertedly ‘Lucy Bull 2018’ (on the reverse)

16:43, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 November 2022
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 529,200

16:43 | The Now Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:43, 2020
Oil on linen
60×50 inches (152.4 x 127 cm)
Initialed LB and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

A kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chroma and texture, Lucy Bull’s 16:43 unravels in the transcendental finesse of the young artist’s painterly hand, presenting an indelibly visceral sight that fluctuates between a surrealist dream, a synesthetic painterly composition, and a psychedelic experience. Ripples of magenta, yellow, and teal simultaneously coalesce and collapse into an atmospheric abyss of color and form; this disorienting yet serene escape into aesthetics seemingly dissolves time and space to offer a sublime meditation for the senses instead, a phenomenally immersive experience in a culture saturated with otherwise fleeting images and trends. Recently debuting with her first solo New York gallery exhibition in 2022 at David Kordansky, the young LA-based artist has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art as she captivates audiences with a cosmic oeuvre of paintings, each of which crystallizes a new glimpse into the illusory and unconscious unknown.

With its amorphous collision of color and form, 16:43 brilliantly exemplifies the mysticism of Lucy Bull’s distinctly contemporary practice as it draws the viewer into a cosmic illusion of painterly transfiguration. Tessellations of scratched markings give way to underlying layers of paint, which Bull accumulates in daubed and gauzy veils; meanwhile, streaming gradations of color seamlessly flow into each other, allowing vermillion smears to bleed into scattered yellow smudges. The resulting vision is an ineffable all-over composition whereby descriptive analysis falls short. By harmoniously teetering between the material realities of its pigment and surface and the subjective experiences it elicits, 16:43 accesses the sensitive liminality between conscious and subconscious states of being.

Untitled, 2019

Phillips New-York: 15 November 2022
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 478,800

Lucy Bull – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 27 November 2022 | Phillips

In Untitled, the horizontal canvas, similar in shape to a wide-screen film in theaters, provides space for the viewer to look closely. A subtle band of yellow paint bordered in black runs through the center of the composition like a horizon line at eye-level, grounding the viewer as they run through kaleidoscopic spirals of bright turquoise, pink, white, acid green, cerulean, and glittering bronze. Bull’s colors and brushstrokes turn in on themselves, over and over, back and forth, extending time within the space of the canvas. Bull refers to this effect as a sort of “timed release”; just as the action of a film plays out over time, so do the visual effects of Untitled.

“Time is everything, I’ve always been jealous of filmmakers, who expect no one will leave the theater. When I’m painting, I’m always thinking about creating the same kind of psychic space that a movie does…”

The shifting, swirling layers of shining oil paint reward an emotional, rather than analytical, response. “Every interpretation is valid,” Bull says, and though she compares her work to Rorschach tests, she discourages viewers from trying to assign a specific emotion or feeling to each of her works. Instead, she is interested in “channeling the ambiguous or the unknown… [i]t’s most exciting when [the paintings] stir a multitude of associations.”

In this way, she calls on a legacy of Surrealist artists, such as Max Ernst, who let the processes of the unconscious mind guide their artistic practice. Surrealist painters let the paint, brush, and gesture lead the way, with as little conscious intervention as possible. Bull relates to this sentiment, strongly, citing Ernst’s experience of “being a spectator to the making of his own work” as akin to her painting process. With compositions like Untitled, the viewer is “invited to feel [their] way through an experience.”  To feel one’s way through an artwork involves getting a little “lost in the sauce,” as Bull puts it, but that’s part of her creative process, too.  “They’re finished when I get lost,” she says, “when I lose track of how I made them.”

No More Blue Tomorrows, 2018

Christie’s London: 28 June 2022
Estimated: GBP 60,000 – 80,000
GBP 277,200 / USD 338,337

LUCY BULL (B. 1990) (christies.com)

LUCY BULL (B. 1990)
No More Blue Tomorrows, 2018
Oil on linen
42×42 inches (106.7 x 106.7 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘LB 18’ (on the reverse)

A psychedelic miasma of purples and blues unfolds across the surface of Lucy Bull’s No More Blue Tomorrows (2018), whorled with fine texture and lit up by tongues of yellow flame. It is a mesmerising vision, its nebulous, biomorphic forms hinting at known shapes and spaces before dissolving back into abstract mirage. Bull builds her complex, layered paintings intuitively, letting herself be guided by their materials: here, she appears to have scored the final glaze of paint with the end of her brush, combing it into plumes of translucent, feathery pattern that radiate out from the aureoles and contours of colour behind. Endlessly evocative, the work offers a galactic, hypnotic space for the eye and mind to wander, conjuring their own mirages of feeling and association: at the same time, it bares its painterly surface openly, involving the viewer intimately in the hard-won process of its creation.

Special Guest, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 May 2022
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 907,200

Special Guest | The Now Evening Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Special Guest, 2019
Oil on linen
50×33 inches (127 x 83.8 cm)
Signed Lucy Bull, titled Special Guest and dated 19 (on the reverse)

Gracefully composed of layers and marks that defy clear structural order, Lucy Bull’s Special Guest from 2019 mesmerizes viewers with a vision reminiscent of a psychedelic experience or a deep dream. The longer one gazes into the work, the more one is lost in the hypnotic trance it induces, as forms emerge from the lush swirls of undefined lines, or slip away into the kaleidoscopic gradations of magenta and yellow. This disorienting yet serene escape into aesthetics offers a mystical meditation for the senses, a phenomenally immersive experience in a culture saturated with otherwise fleeting images and trends. A highlight of the Los Angeles-based artist’s 2019 solo exhibition at the High Art Gallery in Paris, Special Guest reveals the transcendent brilliance of Bull’s painterly finesse, as the textured patterns and ebullient colors of the painting guide our eye through the ebb and flow of the dreamlike experience that its composition evokes.

Bull’s enigmatic paintings balance the chromatic vibrancy of color field paintings by the likes of Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, or Sam Gilliam with gestural markings that recall the Surrealist landscapes of Max Ernst, who developed the technique of grattage to record the grain of textured objects between layers of paint. Embodying the fundamental Surrealist interest in unlocking new subconscious potentialities, Bull’s ethereal paintings stimulate a delicate wavering between conscious and unconscious thought in the viewer. This visceral experience offers a mirror into Bull’s own process, which balances both calculation and impulse as the artist works to tease out fragments of forms from the abstract layers of her loose brushwork. In the artist’s own words, “I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.” (The artist in conversation with Ophelia Sanderson, “Getting Lost in the Enigmatic Paintings of Lucy Bull,” Whitewall Magazine, 18 November 2021 (online)) In Special Guest, the artist continues to engage the medium of painting as both choreography of and experimentation with the ineffable possibilities of synesthetic perception, using her sublime fluency in color and texture to play gentle tricks on our eye, and with it, our mind.