“It’s this combination of playing with the mark-making, and stamping it with the imprint of my brush and twisting it in weird ways. 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.”
—Lucy Bull, quoted in Steph Eckardt, “In the Studio With Lucy Bull, the Painter Bringing Back Abstraction”, W Magazine, 3 April 2021

D azzling 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 colour, 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 colour. 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.

“Every interpretation is valid. The paintings kind of function like Rorschachs. If someone were to tell me they see a certain thing in them, it's telling me more about their psychology than about the work itself.”
Lucy Bull, quoted in Steph Eckardt, “In the Studio With Lucy Bull, the Painter Bringing Back Abstraction”, W Magazine, 3 April, 2021

Bull’s esoteric paintings balance the chromatic vibrancy of colour 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. As the artist describes, “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)). Tessellations of scratched markings give way to underlying layers of paint, which Bull accumulates in daubed and gauzy veils; meanwhile, streaming gradations of colour 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.

LUCY BULL IN HER STUDIO, 2021 Photograph by Jacob Ace for W magazine


「其實就是結合了痕跡創作,用我的獨有筆觸留下印記和以不尋常的方式扭動畫筆。重點是在於速度、手腕轉動的姿勢、畫筆上的油彩份量。首先要逐層逐層堆疊上去,然後再運用減約的技巧,像是把顏料刮掉或刮擦出痕跡。」
—露西.布爾,引述自史蒂夫·艾卡特(Steph Eckardt),〈探訪露西.布爾的畫室:專訪這位讓抽象回歸的藝術家〉,《W Magazine》雜誌,2021年4月3日

雜紛呈的異彩奇光在眼前變幻不斷,盈盪著失真迷幻的效果,仿佛超然物外。《散熱器》以色相飽和、色彩斑駁的抽象形態呈現出叫人讚嘆稱奇的景象,成為了印證露西.布爾引人著迷、精心營造的抽象筆觸的實例。血紅、酸性黃和電光藍這些充滿情緒張力的色調如色彩漣漪般擴散,營造出一個各種形狀不斷自其中浮現的深淵氛圍,《散熱器》讓人一睹幻象和潛意識的領域。龐雜的形狀沒有明確的線條界限,在撲朔迷離間沒入斑爛奇麗的各種色彩漸變中,聚合成一個既混沌無序又發人深思的體驗境界。本作的動勢運筆非常精湛,在偶然觸發與精心策劃之間呈現充滿戲劇變化的效果,最終達至色彩鮮麗而諧和的壯觀畫象。露西·布爾的作品往往帶著高深莫測的氣息,《散熱器》是當中的精彩例子,它將這位年輕藝術家以獨具一格的當代手法呈現的神秘主義體現得淋漓盡致,引領觀者進入由隨意揮灑的抽象筆觸幻化成的星辰幻覺。

「每種解讀都可以成立。這些畫大概有著像『羅夏墨跡測驗』的功能。如果有人跟我說他們在畫中看到某些東西,當中透露的更多是關乎他們的心理,而不是作品本身。」
露西.布爾,引述自史蒂夫·艾卡特,〈探訪露西.布爾的畫室:專訪這位讓抽象回歸的藝術家〉,《W Magazine》雜誌,2021年4月3日

布爾的畫作風格神秘高深,平衡了其他同類型色面繪畫藝術家,如艾爾瑪·托馬斯、海倫·佛蘭肯瑟勒或森姆·基利林等人比較以展現豐富強烈色彩為主的作品。她運筆的手勢痕跡讓人想起馬克斯·恩斯特的超現實主義風景畫,恩斯特鑽研出搔刮法(grattage)並在層疊的顏料之間刮出起絨的事物紋理。布爾對於色彩痕跡的堆疊處理超越了理性的邏輯規律,但零碎的抽象形狀卻自布爾散宕的筆觸中浮現出來,邀請觀者進入一種內在深層的體驗。正如布爾所言:「我想要挑動知覺感官,我想吸引人趨近作品。我覺得大家不太習慣花時間注視牆上的畫作,而我想讓他們有更多的感知體驗。我想吸引他們進入畫作,這樣就可以讓事物敞開,讓大家有機會漫遊探索。」(露西.布爾與奧菲莉亞·桑德森(Ophelia Sanderson)的對談,〈迷失於露西·布爾深邃神秘的畫作中〉,《Whitewall Magazine》雜誌,2021年11月18日,網上版)。在如棋盤紋被刮開的刮擦痕跡下,布爾於底層輕抹堆疊、如薄紗般的顏料浮現而出;同時,抹塗的橙色和藍色滲入偶然乍現的黃色痕跡,顏料的漸層無縫地穿透流動。顏料和畫布表面構成物質現實,畫作則勾起主觀體驗,《散熱器》和諧地擺盪於物質現實和主觀體驗之間並藉此接通了意識和潛意識狀態之間的敏感交界。《散熱器》挑動感知,讓人如臨其境且神秘莫測,將畫家與顏料運用、追求精細與放任隨意之間爭持不下的拉扯如是呈現,開拓出無窮無盡的聯想和當下𣊬間的感知體驗。露西.布爾最近於上海龍美術館舉行的個展正式閉幕,這位來自洛杉磯的年輕藝術家以出眾表現成為當代抽象藝術的楷模,其如同宇宙星辰般的畫作讓觀者為之著迷,每幅作品都成了驚鴻一瞥的新景象,讓人窺見幻象和潛意識中的未知。