Lucy Pullen

Lucy Pullen is a Canadian artist based in New York. She is best known for crossover projects, sculpture and drawing.

Early life and education

Pullen was born to Gillian Lovitt (née Wickwire) and Hugh Francis Haswell Pullen in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1994 she received a bachelor's degree in studio art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. In 2001 she received a Master of Fine Art from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, in Philadelphia.

From 2002 to 2013 Pullen was an assistant professor of visual art at the University of Victoria in British Columbia Canada, tenured in 2007.[1]

Work

In 2018, Pullen participated in the CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area), a biannual, free public exhibition of contemporary art in the cities and surrounding areas of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. For CAFKA.18, Pullen produced a mural, titled Recognize Everyone,[2] that covers the elevator shaft and the wraparound fire escape on the building of 27 Gaukel Street in Kitchener. The polychromatic star mural work is an immersive art work, that visitors can walk into as they climb the stairs of the building.

In her series Interval for Halifax (2013), Pullen wrapped playground swings in Scotchlite tape. Visitors interact with the work by playing on the swings. The artist suggests photographing the swings in action, using flash, in order to experience the work fully. "The swing is [wrapped] in reflective material, in a certain moment it looks like a line of light, as if someone is riding a bolt of lightning."[3]

The use of silver reappears throughout Pullen's work. Examples include, a silver print of the artist in a reflective silver skirt Flash, 1999; a series of drawings made on metallic paper Portal, 2002; and a rope sculpture covered in the same light-sensitive Scotchlite material called The Thing, 2003; and Ladder and Ladders, both 2003, which also involve the eponymous being covered in Scotchlite material.

Pullen's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, 2011), Artspeak (Vancouver, 2010), The Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2003), Art Metropole (Toronto, 2006) and Eye Level Gallery (Halifax, 1997). She has exhibited with Thread Collective (New York, 2015), Library & Archives, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax, 2009), Helen Pitt Gallery (Vancouver, 2001), Beaver College (2000), Optica (Montréal, 1999), and St. Mary's University Art Gallery (Halifax, 1997). Her works were included in survey The Festival of Independents, Tate Modern (London, 2010), How Soon is Now, Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2009), Ten by Twenty, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, 2004), and Art Papers, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1997).

Crossover projects include 100 Closest Stars (2016) with Stuart Lynn in Brooklyn, The Perfect Solids (1996) with Professor Pat Keast in the Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics at Dalhousie University in Halifax and The Cloud Chamber (2011) with Dr. Justin Albert and the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy; a freestanding detector-sculpture for viewing cosmic rays in real time with the naked eye.

Style

Her work has a playfulness and directness that opens it up to any viewer. It can be critically linked to conceptualism, and to a NSCAD trend to use unusual materials to make metaphysical points, but it is not necessary to know a secret art language to understand or enjoy it.[4][5] Her work is marked by conceptual ambition, technical daring, and antic humor.[6] Pullen's work is built on paradox.[7] While her work varies dramatically in its final form, an analytical orientation can be isolated as a unifying thread throughout her recent work.[8] Product and invention never seem to be the point. Discovery, arising from the process of creation and destruction, does. Preoccupied with changing the points of reference that box art in as art, she calls attention to the artistic potential within everyday experience.[9]

References
  1. "Lucy Pullen swings and hits". The Coast.
  2. "Lucy Pullen: Recognize Everyone". Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener + Area. 2018-01-07. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
  3. "Lucy Pullen swings and hits". The Coast Halifax. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
  4. Bernard, A., "Great Pairs of Legs Sculptor’s style playful; painter as darker view" The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax: May 9, 1997
  5. "Lucy Pullen explores phenomena and color in new exhibition at Romer Young Gallery". Artdaily.com. 28 November 2017.
  6. Hayes, K., 1:1 Recent Halifax Sculpture, SL Simpson Gallery, Toronto Canada: April 4–30, 1996
  7. Jenkner, I., Somewhere Along The Line, Mount St. Vincent Art Gallery, Halifax: 2009
  8. Laurin, G., St. Mary’s University Art Gallery, Halifax, Canada: April 9 – May 18, 1997
  9. Flinn, Sue Carter. "In your face, art". The Coast.
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