About
Lucy Mayes is an artist and pigment maker whose work redefines the relationship between colour and the urban environment. Her academic foundation at The Ruskin, Oxford University and the Royal College of Art sparked a deep-seated interest in colour theory, pigment processing and the technical craft of paint making.
Lucy’s professional expertise is underpinned by her tenure as a pigment consultant and product developer at the prestigious L Cornelissen & Son. During her time there, she was instrumental in developing their historical pigment archive, a role that deepened her understanding of traditional materials and their historical heritage.
While she continues to use traditional British earth colours, Lucy has explored the potent potential of ‘urban waste stream’ materials. Her practice is distinctive for its use of esoteric raw materials – such as verdigris harvested from copper wire stripped from burnt-out mopeds, construction rubble and soot from park fires – to document modern ‘happenings’. By repurposing materials that carry the weight of previous human labour, she creates recycled pigments with complex meanings that narrate a contemporary lived experience.
