Lucy Mulholland was the recipient of the 2022 Lyon & Turnbull Graduate Showcase Award. As part of the award, Lucy spent one week at Sweeney’s Bothy in March 2023.
The award will culminate this summer with an exhibition of Lucy’s recent work at Lyon & Turnbull’s Edinburgh showroom taking place between 4-9 August 2023, alongside the public view of their of Contemporary and Post-War Art auction.
Lucy Mulholland (b.1999) is an artist currently based in Northern Ireland, with a particular interest in the role art has in exploring possible post-anthropocentric futures. Lucy studied at Edinburgh College of Art between 2019-2022 gaining a First Class Honours Degree in Sculpture. An interest in ecology, and a playful investigation into the connections between humans and other species within nature, underpins her work. Responding to the complexities of our ecological crisis, her practice foregrounds speculative imagination, humour and hope. During her final year of art school, she looked at the ‘mis-translation’ of actions made by non-humans and the inevitable shortcomings we encounter when we try to adapt ‘human spaces’ to facilitate their use by other species. She also considered the distinctions made between the categorisation of ‘pet’ and ‘pest’ and the boundary between ‘wildness’ and ‘domesticity’.
Lyon & Turnbull’s Graduate Showcase Award was launched in 2017 to provide an opportunity for a graduate to further their practice during the crucial twelve month period after leaving university. Lyon & Turnbull Auctioneers have an established history of supporting Scotland’s art institutions and art practitioners in the form of prizes, awards and sponsorship. Recognising how important and scarce opportunities are immediately after graduation, they were keen to expand their remit to offer a platform for emerging, early career artists. Each year, specialists Charlotte Riordan and Carly Shearer from Lyon & Turnbull’s painting department, select an undergraduate from the Edinburgh College of Art degree show. The chosen artist receives a supported residency with Bothy Project and a profile-raising exhibition at Lyon & Turnbull’s Edinburgh saleroom.
Image 1: portrait of Lucy Mulholland. Courtesy of the artist.
Image 2: Lucy Mulholland, Compost for the future, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Image 3: Lucy Mulholland, Care and Confusion, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
