I am a multi-disciplinary creative interested in people, place and process. Currently I am exploring these themes through my two separate roles as a psychotherapist and an educator.
My background spans sculpture, socially engaged projects and artist development. I hold a long-standing interest in belief systems and meaning making, and previously I have explored this through site-specific commissions and residencies, curatorial projects and artist-leadership.
When I make art, it is led by research, objects, materials and processes. The language and practices of everyday culture and archival collection inform my sculpture, site-specific installation, and public activity. I have completed commissions and residencies with organisations such as National Trust, Cadw and Arts Council of Wales, Canal & Rivers Trust, National Glass Centre Sunderland, Castlefield Gallery and Aberystwyth Arts Centre. My work is held in the permanent collection of MIMA and was exhibited as part of Sonia Boyce OBE RA’s touring exhibition In the Castle of My Skin in 2020-21.
Between 2017 and 2021 I co-founded the artist-led organisation, Paradise Works Salford in response to the erasure of artist-led communities from city centres. I worked with artists to establish long-term studio provision with a dynamic programme of exhibitions, artistic development and public facing activity, and led on strategic development activities. I was awarded the Clore Visual Arts Fellowship for this work and subsequently undertook an 18-month programme of professional development activity including an Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded research project on sustainable artist communities in urban centres with supervision from University of Salford.
I am an RD1st and Culture at Work accredited Relational Dynamic coach and in 2026, I established Ply Psychotherapy where I work therapeutically with clients from all walks of life. I am a registered member with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and am trained in Transactional Analysis, an approach which brings clarity to how our relationships and experiences shape our day-to-day lives, and which supports a path of sustainable healing and change.
I continue to draw my broad expertise into my role as lecturer at the University of Salford School of Arts & Media where I currently teach undergraduate students of BA (Hons) Fine Art. I am an accredited Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
–
C.V.
2026 – present – Ply Psychotherapy and Counselling [more here]
2017 – present – Lecturer, University of Salford – specialising in Critical & Contextual Studies and Fine Art
2017-2022 – Paradise Works – Co-Founding Director of artist-led organisation and studio space [more here]
2021-2022 – Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice – new work on psychoanalysis and superstition [more here]
2020-2021 – Collaborative Approaches to Integrating Visual Arts Spaces into Urban Centres – AHRC Funded Research
2019-2021 – Clore Visual Arts Fellow – an 18-month leadership development programme with Clore Leadership and a-n
2018 – Assembly Salford – lead-artist and curator for day-long symposium for a-n [more here]
2017 – Mutual Improvement Society site-specific commission at National Trust Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire [more here]
2016 – Place + Production 6-month programme coordination and curation for Rogue Artists’ Studios
2016 – Great Northern Graduates showcase curation for Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair
2015 – The Grotto Project, Arts Council Funded public project + site-specific works, Waterside Arts Centre, Sale [more here]
2014 – Useful Work Versus Useless Toil, site-specific commission 42nd Street, Manchester [more here]
2013 – 2015 – Gallery Development and Bankley Open, Bankley Studios & Gallery, Levenshulme
2013 – Austere and Ornamental, 6-month residency at Valle Crucis Abbey, with Cadw + Arts Council of Wales [more here]
2012 – Chronology, residency at Canal & River Trust, Wigan, with East Street Arts + Contemporary Art Society [more here]
2012 – Collecting History, socially engaged archival commission with Manchester Craft & Design Centre
2011 – Craftworks, socially engaged research commission with Library Theatre Company, Manchester
2010 – The Language of Birds, industry residency for National Glass Centre for group show Re-make/Re-model
2010 – Made in the North East, industry residency and commission with National Glass Centre and Nulife Glass
2010 – Aberystwyth Primitive, 3-month residency at Aberystwyth Arts Centre funded by Esmée Fairbairn [more here]
–
Training
2026 – present – Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
2026 – Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), AdvanceHE and Salford University
2022 – 26 – Certificate Award in Psychotherapeutic Counselling (Transactional Analysis) with the South Manchester Centre of Psychotherapy Certificate
2021 – Transactional Analysis 101 Certificate – South Manchester Centre for Psychotherapy
2021 – Relational Dynamic Coach, accredited by RD1st and Culture at Work
2008 – MA Jewellery and Related Products, Birmingham City University
2007 – BA (Hons) Three Dimensional Design, Manchester Metropolitan University
–
Public Collection
2010 MIMA, Middlesbrough
–
Selected Exhibition
2021 Sonia Boyce: In the Castle of My Skin, MIMA Middlesbrough
2020 Sonia Boyce: In the Castle of My Skin, East Side Projects
2016 Progress, Rogue Artists’ Studios & Project Space
2015 Launch Pad: For Posterity, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
2012 Epidemic, Kokomo University Art Gallery, USA
2011 Portraits in the Making, Pitzhanger Manor House, London
Re-make/Re-model, National Glass Centre, Sunderland
Gallery of Wonder: Lucy Harvey, Hancock Museum, Newcastle
2010 One Place to Call Home, MIMA Middlesbrough
5, Aberystwyth Arts Centre
lucyelsieharvey.com 