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“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.”
—Lucy BullDiaphanous webs of vibrant color overtake the surface of Lucy Bull’s Dark Companion, 2020. Bull’s marks glitter and shift in thin gauzes of gold, coral, green, and blue, stretching and waving, threadlike, in layers of bioluminescent oils. The visual effect is somewhere between that of a Y2K desktop screensaver and the undulating fins of a deep sea creature—a tension between digital and natural, synthetic and organic associations that pervades Bull’s abstract oeuvre. The meditative canvas, open to prolonged contemplation and multivalent interpretation, gives life to the wanderings of a musing mind.
The viewer is hypnotized as they wander throughout the work, stepping into a universe in which neither time nor space are tangible, much less linear. Bull intuitively builds juxtapositions of light and dark color, in flashes of contrast which draw the eye along the featherlight golden strokes of her paintbrush. A base layer of navy blue, nearly black, lightens into bursts of bright teal; areas of slate grey dapple into golden yellow and fluorescent orange. Lemon yellow and hot pink spark across the canvas, while touches of white and lime green patter into small crescents, like the surfing edges of waves, or scales of a glistening dark creature. Bull’s painted “companion” is all-enveloping, and the viewer is happy to be lost in its depths.
Max Ernst, Profanation of the Spring, 1945. Private Collection. Artwork: © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris The emotional force of Dark Companion depends upon the viewer’s willingness to embrace a meditative state of extended contemplation, an effect which Bull refers to as a sort of “timed release.” In this way, Bull is inspired by her love of film, a medium that inherently depends on time for its artistic impact; just as the action of a film plays out over time, so do the visual effects of Dark Companion. “Time is everything,” Bull says. “I’ve always been jealous of filmmakers, who expect no one will leave the theater. When I’m painting, I’m always thinking about creating the same kind of psychic space that a movie does.”i
The cosmos Bull creates calls on the legacies of Surrealist artists, such as Max Ernst, who let the processes of the unconscious mind guide their artistic practice. Surrealist painters let the paint, brush, and gesture lead the way, with as little conscious intervention as possible. Bull cites Ernst’s experience of “being a spectator to the making of his own work” as akin to her own process. “When things finally open up and click,” she says, “it feels like magic.”ii
Dark Companion is a mesmerizing journey through the depths of emotion and imagination, a testament to the power of art to transport us beyond the limits of language and into the uncharted territories of the mind. Bull “makes room for both precision and abandon, inviting viewers to participate in ever-unfinished processes of creation that she choreographs but never fully controls.”iii
Collector’s Digest
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Bull’s work is currently on display at The Warehouse, Dallas, in Lucy Bull: Nacar, through November 25.
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Most recently, she had a solo exhibition at the Long Museum Shanghai, with Venus World, Jun.-Aug. 2023. Her work was also featured in the NGV Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne this year.
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Bull’s paintings reside in numerous institutional collections, including MAMCO Geneva, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, among others.
i Lucy Bull, quoted in Kat Herriman, “Artist Lucy Bull Invites Others Into Her Cosmos,” Cultured Magazine, 2020, online.
ii Bull, quoted in John Garcia, “Getting Lost in the Brushstrokes: Lucy Bull Interviewed by John Garcia,” BOMB Magazine, Apr. 26, 2021, online.
iii David Kordansky Gallery, “Artist Lucy Bull: Bio,” online.
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Provenance
High Art, Paris
Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present owner
32
Dark companion
signed and dated "Lucy Bull 2020" on the reverse
oil on canvas
60 x 30 in. (152.4 x 76.2 cm)
Painted in 2020.
Estimate
$400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,041,400
Carolyn Kolberg
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CKolberg@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art, Evening Sale Part II
New York Auction 14 November 2023
31
Ambera Wellmann
Ritz
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $133,350
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32
Lucy Bull
Dark companion
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,041,400
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33
Lynne Drexler
Seasonal Green
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
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34
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (636)
Estimate On Request
Sold for $34,800,000
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35
This lot is no longer available.
36
Georg Baselitz
Ein Roter
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $7,320,000
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37
Helen Frankenthaler
Fire
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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38
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (557-3)
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,298,500
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39
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40
Georg Baselitz
Untitled
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $203,200
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41
Pablo Picasso
Tête d'homme et nu assis
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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42
George Condo
Eyes Wide Open
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,391,000
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43
This lot is no longer available.
44
Nicolas de Staël
Personnages au bord de la mer
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
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45
Ben Sledsens
A second nice break
Estimate $120,000 - 180,000
Sold for $279,400
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46
Jadé Fadojutimi
Quirk my mannerism
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,935,500
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47
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48
Damien Hirst
Covenant
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $952,500
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49
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Our prices are insane!)
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $571,500
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50
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate $2,800,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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51
Jeff Koons
Balloon Venus Dolni Vestonice (Magenta)
Estimate $3,000,000 - 5,000,000
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52
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $863,600
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53
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chapeau
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $889,000
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54
Christina Quarles
Floored
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $228,600
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55
Lucio Fontana
Concetto spaziale, Attese
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,512,000
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56
Emilio Vedova
Ciclo della Protesta (Brasile '56)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $698,500
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57
KAWS
UNTITLED (DBZ2)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,875,000
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58
Jeff Koons
Lobster Log
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,270,000
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59
Elizabeth Peyton
Mendips, 1963
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,206,500
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60
Henry Taylor
Government Cheese
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $177,800
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