Expert Profiles

Lucy Shires

Urban Abstract Artist

Lucy Shires is a British photographic artist specialising in capturing textures and urban abstractions. After leaving the industrial North West, she travelled across Europe, documenting urban entropy in hidden, abandoned places across the continent. Once inhabited and now forlorn spaces have become a hallmark of her work, the decay of Chernobyl holding a particular fascination. Undertaking in-depth historical research, Lucy uncovers the forgotten lives of the people who resided in these abandoned places.

Her most recent work captures the intense beauty of the East coast, where she now lives, exposing the complex details of the sparse Norfolk landscape through her imagery.

Lucy solely shoots a 50mm lens, with the express purpose of restraining a composition, capturing in microcosm the essence of a location without distorting the narrative through the viewer's subjective lens born out of context and history.

All images © Lucy Shires