Lucy Marks grew up in and around Brighton and lives in Worthing, where she devotes most of her practice to capturing the Sussex landscape in evocative oil and watercolour paintings. She works both en plein air and in her studio for larger works.  All of her work starts of in the environment and reflects the mood of the place, time and space.  If she is working from life in the studio, Lucy works to capture the essence of the subject.  The work allows the viewers to project their own interpretation of her paintings and invites them to go out and connect with nature themselves. 

Lucy Marks is an award-winning landscape painter whose dynamic compositions communicate the changing energy and movement within the landscape. She regularly sketches and paints en plein air in both oil and watercolour. She is frequently seen out with her pochade in the landscape in all weathers! Back in the studio, the field sketches and finished paintings are used as the basis of much larger works. 

She distils elements from the en plein air work and sketches, to explore the energy and aliveness of the landscape. This allows her to create larger works in oil and watercolour. She likes working with simple materials and avoids anything contrived or gimmicky. 

Lucy holds an MA in Fine Art from Brighton University. Lucy is an Associate Member of both the Royal Institute of Oil Paineters and the Royal Watercolour Society.  She is a Member of the Society of Women Artists, and a Member of the Chelsea Arts Society. Her work has also been shown in the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, and the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition to name but a few. 

Lucy has undertaken a number of large solo shows.  In 2021, she was invited by the Petworth House, National Trust, to paint their park and gardens culminating in a three-month solo show, ‘Dawn to Dusk’, exhibited in the historic house itself. And in 2022, Lucy showed a large body of both oil and watercolours based on three walks John Constable undertook in and around Brighton.  ‘Constable’s Walks’ was exhibited in the new Royal Watercolour Society Gallery, Whitcomb Street, London. 

In 2022 Lucy was awarded the ‘Sloane Stanley Medal’ at the Chelsea Art Society.  She was also a finalist in the 2022 British Art Prize for her large oil “Golden Dusk” (120 x 200cm).   Another large oil painting “Golden Dawn – Across to Tillington Monument, Petworth” was exhibited and sold at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.  Lucy was also successful in exhibiting and selling another large oil painting in the 2023 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.  In 2020, she was a Finalist for the Drawing Bursary at the ING Discerning Eye, where she also won the Humphreys Purchase Prize in 2019.