Lucy Nelson (b.1983, Shropshire) is a visual artist based in Nottingham, UK. Lucy joins a material-driven practice with an interest in lost and overlooked female-centred narratives, disconnection from nature and the under representation of female reproductive health. She frequently draws on her own experience of pregnancy loss, examining the becoming and unbecoming experienced in motherhood. Working primarily with sculpture, Lucy creates ambiguous forms that often hover between the natural and fabricated. She regularly works with synthetic materials to give shape to what is unseen or absent. The medical and museum specimen is often referenced through clinical staging whilst interweaving ideas of growth, uncertainty, fragility and interrupted processes.
EDUCATION
2022 – 2024 MFA Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University
2002 – 2005 BA (hons) Fine Art, Staffordshire University
EXHIBITIONS
Upcoming BACKLIT | Nottingham
Upcoming Haarlem Artspace | Wirksworth
2025 The Bonecrusher's Dream | Council Galley x The Curious Tower | Nottingham
2025 Perennial | Haarlem Artspace | Wirksworth
2024 Escape Simplicity | Surface | Nottingham
2024 Forged | Ilkon x Cosimo x Imprimo | Ilkeston
2024 BACKLIT Gallery Members Show | BACKLIT Gallery | Nottingham
2024 Ta-Da! | Backlit Project Space | Nottingham
2024 Wherever You May Wander | Surface | Nottingham
2024 Tiny Plants | Fronteer Gallery | Sheffield
2023 Beginnings and Endings, online and zine | Haus-a-rest
2023 The Tradition of Nonsense | BACKLIT – The Main Gallery | Nottingham
2023 Resonance and Wonder Pop-Up | Zion Baptist Church and Stork Crypt | Cambridge
2023 Portalis | Nottingham Contemporary | Nottingham
2023 Re.View | BACKLIT - The Project Gallery | Nottingham
2005 Graduate Degree Show | Staffordshire University | Stoke-On-Trent
2003 Boys and Girls | Elective Gallery | Stoke-On-Trent
RESIDENCIES, PROJECTS + AWARDS
Current Lumina X Maid Marian Legacy
2025 The Eaton Fund Award
2024 EM24 | Surface Gallery
2024 Lumina X Women In Horror
2023 Women In Art Finalist
2022 – 2023 Catalyst | Nottingham Contemporary
2022 Vieunite X NTU Biophilia Finalist
2022 Human Nature Connect with Intercultural Roots | Ingleton, Yorkshire
WORKSHOPS + PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
2024 Artist Talk | EM24 | Surface Gallery
2024 Shells, stones, bones and seeds | Surface Gallery
2024 Artist Talk | Island Festival | Surface Gallery
2023 Micro Discovery | Nottingham Contemporary
2023 Pecha Kucha | Nottingham Trent University
2023 Professional Practice Guest Speaker for FDA Fine Art | Nottingham College
2022 Pecha Kucha | Nottingham Trent University
2005 - 2006 Belmont Arts Centre | Shrewsbury
2005 Walton Youth Club | Stafford
2003 Stage Coach Theatre Arts School | Shrewsbury
WRITING + COMMISSIONS
Current Maid Marian Legacy X Lumina Commission | BACKLIT
2024 Musings for a work in progress: When the grass is free, it dies |
Motherlore Magazine Issue 2 Roots
PRESS + FEATURES
2024 EM24: Spotlight on Lucy Nelson, Interview by Charlotte Pimm-Smith
2024 Graduate Festival 24, Nottingham School of Art + Design Masters Showcase
2023 Portalis Interview for Nottingham Contemporary
2023 We Are Creatives, Nottingham School of Art + Design Masters Showcase
MEMBERSHIP + COLLECTIVES
Lumina Collective
BACKLIT
Vieunite Artist Community