Artistic Practice

My practice explores the perfectly imperfect and embraces flaws, quirks and mistakes as essential, beautiful components of a person or animal. Our compassion and empathy is often more available for animals than humans and is a gateway to social empathy and full acceptance of diversity.

When I begin a project, I search for shapes and lines within the subject to fall in love with, and I develop a plan of how I will communicate these to the viewer. I look for imperfections, vulnerabilities and “problems” which give rise to that feeling of joyful wonder, and I use intentional flaws and mistakes to capture this.

I paint primarily wet on wet in watercolour and harness the controlled chaos of water and pigment to explode the paper with colour, using splashy flicks of the brush and colluding with blooms, and backruns. I am currently exploring the possibilities of UV reactive watercolour paint. I am interested in combining this with the techniques of gesture drawing as applied to a painted surface. This process lends itself very well to capturing the transformative joy of movement.

I work with coloured pencil to make monotone drawings of animals and birds which preserve pentimento, including visible traces of the creative process to build an expressive sense of motion.

I make grimy ornamental art boxes with many layers of stencils, cracks and paint build up. These boxes contain unexpected surprises inside and serve as a visual reminder that when we fully engage, we often discover unexpected depths.

My watercolour practice features a palette of Holbein, Daniel Smith and Winsor and Newton paints applied to premium cold pressed Hahnemühle, Arches or Khadi papers. For detailed or gesture drawings, I pair Faber Castell polychromos pencils and Derwent Drawing pencils with  Khadi or Hahnemühle surfaces. My mixed media works built on wooden foundations layering acrylic paints, inks, and structural mediums, with a rich variety of collage, resin, clay and found objects. 

Artist Biography

Lucy Stearman is a Brighton-based mixed-media artist whose work celebrates the beauty of the "weird and the wonky." Working across watercolour, pencil, and mixed media, Stearman explores themes of imperfection, vulnerability, and the inherent value of mistakes.

Formerly a semi-professional dancer, Stearman pivoted to visual arts after developing a chronic illness and becoming an ambulatory wheelchair user. This transition informed a practice rooted in adaptation and a disabled, neurodiverse and queer perspective. With a
BA (Hons) in Cultural and Historical Studies, she employs a research led approach to animal portraiture. Her work investigates how compassion for the "imperfect" animal serves as a broader metaphor for human diversity and social empathy.

Stearman’s work has been exhibited at Newhaven Art Projects, Pretty Neat Gallery, and Brighton’s Artists Open Houses. Most recently, her practice has been supported by a dedicated independent practice and professional mentoring, resulting in her inclusion in the DRAWING exhibition at The Animal Art Space.