First U.S. Museum Exhibition For Lucy Bull Opens This December

The first solo U.S. museum presentation for abstract painter Lucy Bull (b. 1990) opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) this December.

Showcasing 20 of the artist's recent paintings and a newly commissioned monumental painting animating the museum's staircase, Lucy Bull: The Garden of Forking Paths illuminates the artist's distinct language of abstraction. Coinciding with Miami Art Week, and curated by Gean Moreno, ICA Miami's Director of the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center, the exhibition is on view at ICA Miami from December 3, 2024, to March 30, 2025.

Known for visceral works that appeal directly to the senses, Bull's paintings sit at the edge of language. In them, the macroscopic and the microscopic constantly swap places, as landscapes often morph into depictions of internal psychic spaces. Worlds take shape as momentary coagulations, only to settle back into a space of constant transformation.  Her works are enlivened by modulating emotional temperatures and by courting far-reaching associations. As a result, optical overload and disruptive dissonance move typical perception into a hypersensitive mode.

Lucy Bull: The Garden of Forking Paths brings together for the first time 20 paintings produced between 2019 and 2024, including two large-scale horizontal works that stretch over ten feet across, signaling a new space of exploration for the artist into different sizes and scales. Several vertical paintings are presented alongside these works, continuing the artist's pictorial research over the last decade. In parallel to the exhibition, Bull is creating a new monumental work to activate ICA Miami's staircase, on view through September 2025.

“Lucy Bull is a singular voice in contemporary abstract painting whose genre-defining practice continues to rapidly evolve,” said Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami Artistic Director. “We are proud to create the artist's first solo institutional platform, expanding the scholarship and dialogue around her work internationally.”

“Lucy Bull brings a distinct perspective to abstract painting, through her dynamic paint application which disrupts the viewer's perception and creates a constant state of tension,” said Moreno. “By bringing together her new works, the exhibition not only demonstrates the evolution of her practice but provides broader insight into the ways artists are continuing to push the boundaries of abstraction.”

About Lucy Bull

Lucy Bull has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2024), The Warehouse, Dallas (2023); Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai (2023); David Kordansky Gallery, New York (2022), Pond Society, Shanghai (with Guo Fengyi, 2021); David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2021), High Art (Arles, 2020; Paris, 2019); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2019); Smart Objects, Los Angeles (2019); and RMS Queen Mary, Mother Culture, Long Beach, California (2017). Recent group exhibitions include “13 Women: Variation I,” Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California (2022); “Abstract Vocabularies: Selections from the Collection,” Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2021); and “Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art,” Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (2021). Her work is in the permanent collections of 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, Waltham, Massachusetts, among other institutions.

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