About

Michelle Lucking is an award-winning pastel artist known for large-scale seascapes, underwater portraits, and figurative works that explore the emotional and transformative qualities of water. Her practice centres on how light, colour, and movement distort and reveal the human form - from refracted swimmers to striking narrative portraits that use fabric, shadow and saturated colour to create atmosphere and tension.

A dedicated sea swimmer and photographer, Lucking works from her own reference material, translating real sensory experiences of water into paintings that balance realism with mood. Whether capturing the serenity of open water, the abstraction of light across skin, or the quiet intensity of her recent darker, fabric-draped figures, her work is driven by a fascination with the boundary between clarity and obscurity - what water and colour reveal, and what they conceal.

Her work is collected internationally, and in 2017 she received the Annie Longley Award at the annual Pastel Society exhibition. That same year, Contini Gallery in Mayfair acquired four of her paintings for their collection. She is also an Associate Artist for Unison Colour, and her work has appeared in Artist & Illustrator and on television.

In 2024, Lucking was commissioned by The Macallan to create six bespoke paintings of the River Spey for their Speyside Estate. These works are now part of The Macallan Estate’s art collection, installed in Ghillie’s Cottage. One of the paintings was selected for the packaging of their limited-edition whisky release, which also featured three limited-edition prints.

She has collaborated twice with the Isle of Wight Distillery’s Mermaid Gin: in 2023, creating artwork to celebrate their Cocktail of the Month, and again in 2025 for their 10-year anniversary limited-edition release.