About Lucy Newman

About Lucy Newman

Lucy Newman is a contemporary hand embroidery artist creating thread paintings that explore altered natural forms, future ecologies and bodily disorientation. Her practice is driven by experimentation, artistic freedom and a belief in embroidery as a powerful contemporary art medium.

At the centre of Lucy’s work is an investigation into how spontaneous, expressive and immediate hand embroidery can be. Although embroidery is traditionally associated with precision, planning and slow execution, Lucy approaches thread as a painter might approach paint: intuitively, responsively and without always knowing where an image will lead.

Her compositions develop through the act of making. Colour, texture, stitch direction and negative space are used to build, disrupt and transform forms. This freedom to respond in the moment allows unexpected marks and images to emerge, giving the work a sense of movement and instability.

Lucy’s embroidered paintings often imagine natural forms transformed by climate change, pollution and technological interference. Familiar plants, flowers and bodies become fragmented, mutated or difficult to define. The work occupies a space between the real and the imagined, suggesting environments in which technology has infiltrated and altered nature itself.

Living with Mal de Débarquement Syndrome, a neurological condition that creates a persistent sensation of motion, has shaped Lucy’s interest in instability and altered perception. This embodied experience provides a personal foundation for work concerned with uncertainty, transformation and the experience of an unstable world.

Meaningful work is central to Lucy’s practice. Alongside creating and exhibiting her artwork, she teaches hand embroidery through workshops and community projects. Her teaching shares specialist hand skills while encouraging participants to experiment, work intuitively and find greater freedom through making.