Lucy Sparrow
Lucy Sparrow is one of the most exciting and original artists working in the UK today. Her practice is quirky yet subversive, luring the audience in with her soft, tactile, colourful felt creations before hitting them hard with her comment on subjects including the demise of the traditional high street and the fragmentation of community.
She took the art world by storm in Summer 2014 with the opening of her fully-stocked felt Cornershop installation in London’s East End. With queues around the block and wall to wall media coverage, it was both a commercial and critical success. Warmongery, a controversial sell-out installation exploring the issues around gun control and mental health followed in May 2015 and in October 2015, Madame Roxy’s Erotic Emporium opened its doors in the back streets of London’s Soho, showcasing the artist’s complete commitment to her artistic vision, recreating an entire sex shop in glorious technicolour felt, including a fully working, animated felt peep show. In 2016, the BBC commissioned Lucy to recreates the Crown Jewels in felt, to celebrate HRH The Queen’s official 90th birthday.
In May 2017, Lucy undertook her first solo show in the US, opening The Convenience Store, a New York bodega stocked with 9,000 felted artworks. Scheduled to run for a month, the store was an instant hit, selling out in just over two weeks. The bodega dominated the NYC art scene, appearing everywhere from the New York Times to the massive TV screens on Times Square. Returning to the US in August 2018, Lucy opened Sparrow Mart, a fully-felted supermarket in Downtown Los Angeles. Complete with 31,000 hand-painted works. Another instant hit, it generated global press attention and a round the block queue.
December 2018 saw Lucy’s work unveiled in the windows of the Hermés flagship Store on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills and she dominated the headlines at Miami Art Week with her installation piece, Triple Art Bypass, that saw the artist perform ‘live’ surgery to huge crowds at Context Art Fair.
In 2019, Lucy created the cover artwork for the Spring issue of Juxtapoz magazine and opened her debut museum exhibition Lucy Sparrow’s Felt Imaginarium at M Woods in Beijing, China. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Rockefeller Centre in NYC played host to Lucy’s on 6th, a fully stocked felt deli and immersive art experience.
In 2021, Lucy returned home for her first UK exhibition in over five years, opening The Bourdon Street Chemist in the heart of Mayfair in London. This incredibly successful installation gained blanket media coverage, saw fans queueing around the block and became the must-see British exhibition post-Covid.
In April 2021 Lucy was selected as guest artist for series 2 two of Grayson Perry’s Art Club. Her work will be exhibited in the accompanying exhibition at Bristol Museum & Art gallery between December 2021 and May 2022.
January 2022 saw Lucy return to the US for to unveil her most ambitious installation yet. She unveiled Tampa Fresh Foods, a 3,000 sq ft hypermarket filled with over 50,000 felt groceries, a Cuban sandwich bar and humidor, that went viral on tiktok, creating hour-long queues and global coverage.
In June 2022 the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall unveiled Lucy’s fully-felted 6-metre long installation entitled The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Lunch, created to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70th year on the British throne. In July, the work was installed in Buckingham Palace as part of the summer exhibition.
For Frieze Week 2022, Lucy installed a felt covered ice cream van in Regent’s Park selling Mr Frieze ice pops, Mr Whippy 99s and a full selection of childhood favourite ice lollies.
In November 2022, Lucy opened Felt ‘R’ Us, a pop-up Christmas shop and exhibition housing her most loved installations. Meanwhile in Miami, Lucy treated Art Week visitors to McHappiness A fully functioning felted burger restaurant and homage to the golden arches.
Lucy Sparrow lives in a felt cave in an undisclosed location, with her companion Sebastian.
