Lucy Bull Puts the Ultra into Contemporary Abstract Painting

Lucy Bull is on the HENI News radar after her HENI Score—a unique artist’s sentiment—increased an impressive 118% as collectors snap up the Los Angeles-based painter's colorfully expressive abstract canvases.

Bull's forthcoming solo show in Shanghai underlines her status as an in-demand, so-called ultra contemporary artist.

Auction sales of Bull’s paintings have totaled a remarkable $6m over the past two years. For example, a large-scale painting titled 8:50 (2020), sold for $1.45m, more than seven times its high estimate, at Phillips, Hong Kong. Another work, False Tail (2020), sold for $614,800, also at Phillips, Hong Kong, this time for more than twice the high estimate.

She is represented by Los Angeles-based David Kordansky Gallery, which has organised solo shows of her work in its Los Angeles and New York spaces, as well as London-based Almine Rech. Her dealers have shown her works at major art fairs, including editions of Art Basel and Frieze.

Bull, who was born in 1990, is among a small group of younger abstract painters, several of whom are female, whose work is in-demand among international collectors. This summer she is due to unveil eight new, large-scale works in her solo show at the Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai.

“I have a very intuitive relationship to color by never planning ahead yet always making notes and responding to colors. The notes section of my phone is predominately random color combinations, Bull told Bomb magazine, adding, "In my opinion, the more vivid and acidic, the better.”

To get a deeper understanding of Lucy Bull’s career visit her HENI Dashboard; a unique graphical data tool illustrating an artist’s auction sales, shows, profiles, mentions and their HENI Score. You can search for any one of the 100,000 Artist Dashboards to quickly appreciate their trajectory as well as sharing via email, text and WhatsApp.