Lucy Ash - the artist

Biography

Lucy Ash is a British-Canadian artist whose practice seeks to inspire us to work together to create a healthier more equitable future. She also collaborates with the wider community to achieve this.

Lucy’s work incorporates personal narrative with ideas of time, rhythm, and concealment to represent an emotional response to love, death, loss, and injustice. Her practice is to develop series of paintings rather than one-off works, enabling an in-depth exploration around specific themes. Her paintings have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in the UK, New York and Amsterdam. Southampton City Art Gallery hold Iris 02, Portraits of Inspiration, Panel 01 & 02, in their collection.

An active supporter of LGBTIQ+ rights, Lucy exhibited ‘Invisible Portraits’ at Southampton City Art Gallery (September 2022 - January 2023). The show highlighted the LGBTIQ+ community through a series of portraits and film and celebrated diversity, bravery and forgotten figures, making LGBTIQ+ history visible. The exhibition of her series ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ in 2011 was designed to raise awareness of hate-crimes, following the brutal homophobic attack on Ian Baynham in 2009.

Lucy was a student at Central School of Art and Design followed by Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, where she studied sculpture and gained her BA. With a background in film animation, Lucy’s paintings draw directly on the storyboard narrative of film.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2022-2023 Invisible Portraits, Southampton City Art Gallery
2018 Echoes, Turner Sims, Southampton
2016 Pieces of Eight, Highgate Contemporary Art, Highgate, London
2016 Pieces of Eight, West Ox Arts Gallery, Oxfordshire
2014 Works from the Studio, Radcliffe & Newlands, London
2012 49 Frames of Love, Heartbreak Gallery, London
2012 49 Frames of Love, William Road Gallery, London
2011 Wrong Place Wrong Time, William Road Gallery, London
2010 Open House, London
2004 Ozten Zeki Gallery, Brompton Cross, London
1985 On The Wall Gallery, Camden London

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024 Nest Eggs,  Oxmarket Gallery, Candida Stevens Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, CFT, Chichester
2024 Taking Pride in Art, celebrating LGBT history month, Capital Group, London
2022 Framed: Battersea, Lampposts, Clapham Junction, London
2020 Framed: Battersea, Arding & Hobbs’ ground floor façade, London
2019 Recent Acquisitions, Southampton City Art Gallery
2019 Iris 02, displayed for Southampton Pride, Southampton Stories Exhibition, SeaCity Museum
2019 Taking Pride in Art, celebrating LGBT history month, Capital Group, London
2018 Peninsula 2018 Poppy Project, The Suffolk Punch Trust
2018 Summer Exhibition, Chelsea: Garden of Earthly Delights, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2018 Taking Pride in Art, celebrating LGBT history month, Capital Group, London
2017 Miracle on Old Church Street, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2017 ArtCan Appearances of.., The A & D Gallery, London
2017 An Observation of Blue, West Ox Arts Gallery, Oxfordshire
2017 Summer Exhibition, Highgate Contemporary Art, Highgate, London
2017 Every Drop Counts, TOTO Concept Gallery, Clerkenwell, London
2017 WITP, At this point in time, The Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh
2016 Winter Exhibition, Highgate Contemporary Art, Highgate, London
2016 Group Show, Curwen Gallery, Fitzrovia, London
2016 WITP, is het wat je verwach?, Hille & Zotova Art Gallery, Amsterdam
2016 Talking to the Masters, West Ox Arts Gallery, Oxfordshire
2016 WITP, Artists Pop Up Exhibition, Greek Street, Soho, London
2016 Summer Exhibition, Highgate Contemporary Art, Highgate, London
2016 WITP, Artists Exhibition, Clerkenwell Gallery, Clerkenwell, London
2016 Affordable Art Fair, The Art Movement, London
2016 WITP, Artists Exhibition, Salon Event, London
2015 Artists of Vout-O-Reenee's, The Stash Gallery, Whitechapel, London
2015 WITP Artists Exhibition, pop up show, Sacred Space Gallery, Notting Hill, London
2015 Group Show, Curwen Gallery, Fitzrovia, London
2015 10 days Winchester, Chalk, Winchester Cathedral
2015 What is the Point?', Mall Galleries, London
2015 Drawing, Collage & Print, The Stash Gallery, Whitechapel, London
2015 In the Wriggle Room, The Stash Gallery, Whitechapel, London
2014 Mixed Show, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2014 Art for Youth, RCA, London
2013 10 days Winchester, Creative Collisions, Winchester Cathedral
2013 Heroes and Villains, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2012 Love Is..., Heartbreak Gallery, London
2012 The Body Clothed in Art, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2010 re-framing, antennae, London
2009 Exquisite Corpse, Chelsea Arts Club, London
2008 The Birds & The Bees', Chelsea Arts Club, London
2005 Heseltine Masco, Petworth
1997 Art '97, Austin Desmond Fine Art, London
1994 Group Show, Austin Desmond Fine Art, London
1986 Vital Space, Mokotoff Gallery, New York
1985 Annual Open, Royal Western Academy, Bath
1982 Group Show, Cork Street Fine Art, London 

OTHER

2024 LGBT Armed Forces Community Memorial project team, Honorary Art Advisor and Judge
2020 Open Exhibition Judge, In Search of a New World, Southampton City Art Gallery

WORK HELD IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

2018 Iris 02, Southampton City Art Gallery
2023 Portraits of Inspiration, Panel 01 & 02, Southampton City Art Gallery

PUBLICATIONS

2023 Invisible Portraits, Lucy Ash, Southampton City Art Gallery