Liz West to be included in major exhibition at Compton Verney

Seurat to Riley: The Art of Perception
Compton Verney
Exhibition opens 8 July - 1 October 2017  

Liz West's work is to be included in Compton Verney’s summer exhibition which will take you on a fascinating and stimulating journey that looks at the ways in which our visual perceptions have been explored by artists.   

From the Impressionists onwards, artists have been inspired by the colour theories of scientific thinkers such as Michel Eugène Chevreul. The most famous examples are the pointillist works of Georges Seurat and his associates, in which colours other than those actually painted on the canvas are generated in the eye of the beholder through the application of small dots of primary colour.   

During the 20th century, and culminating in the famous Op art movement of the 1960 onwards, the scientific and philosophical interest in perception extended into ways of communicating movement via static art forms. Early explorations of this can be seen in work by artists such as Helen Saunders, M.C. Escher and Josef Albers using tessellation, pattern, line, mathematics and colour, and sometimes optical trickery, to convey the sensation of movement.   

This fascination with the optical in art remains strong amongst artists and makers today and this wide-ranging show features of the works of artists working since the 1960s, such as Jim Lambie, Christiane Baumgartner, Daniel Buren, Liz West and Lothar Götz. Their work is shown alongside later works of those who became stars of the ‘Op art’ movement in the 1960s and who continued to develop and explore new possibilities:  Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Jesus Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc, Peter Sedgley, Jeffrey Steele and Carlos Cruz-Diez. More information HERE.  

Compton Verney 
Warwickshire 
CV35 9HZ

Liz West Introduces her new Studio Manager: Emma Colledge

I am so proud to introduce to you to my new studio manager Emma Colledge. She is an huge asset to my studio team. I thought you would like to get to know her a little so I asked her to answer some questions about what makes her tick... Enjoy!

DOB: 27.06.1992
From: Preston, Lancashire  

1.  Do you have a favourite colour? Why? 
Purple. Fun fact: purple dye was discovered when trying to invent a cure for Malaria.  

2. Which is your favourite work of Liz's? Why? 
Through No.3. I experienced it first hand on my daily commute to work and it never failed to brighten my day.     

3. Where do you find inspiration? 
In people, rather than places. I read a lot of autobiographies by funny people or have a rant with friends.      

4. What did you train in? 
I studied Drama at University of Manchester, focusing on production and playwriting.   

5. What did you do before? 
I’ve worked as a producer for a site-specific theatre company and as a project manager for visual arts events. 

6. What do you do in your spare time? 
I started climbing (bouldering) last year, so spend a lot of my spare time trying not to fall off walls.  

7. Do you have a favourite quote? 
“Decide what your currency is early. Let go of what you will never have.” (Amy Poehler)  

8. What song is your current obsession or what music are you listening to? 
I listened to Wanderer Wandering by Slow Club roughly 15 times yesterday. The rest of the time I’m listening to a back catalogue of Woman’s Hour and Desert Island Discs podcasts, because I’m slowly turning into my mother.  

9. In your opinion, what is the most important issue facing the arts today? 
Across the sector, it’s funding and how broader cuts are undermining the value contributed by the arts. But ensuring your practice is commercially viable can be both a necessary evil and a source of creative opportunities.    

10. What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? 
Often putting adventure before stability – but you only live once!  

11. Have you ever experienced creative block? If so, how did you overcome it? 
Yes, all the time. For me, it’s accepting defeat, taking a step away from it and trusting that you’ll get it when you come back to it refreshed. Even if that has to be 6am the following morning.  

12. Who are your favourite artists or practitioners? 
Two physical theatre companies, Rash Dash and Theatre Ad Infinitum.

Liz West presents new permanent commssion Sevenfold at The Met Theatre in Bury

 Liz West | Sevenfold
The Met, Bury

Commission opens 9 December 2016  

Liz West’s Sevenfold revealed as centrepiece of The Met

When The Met opens its doors in December 2016, following a £4.6 million refurbishment, at the centre of the historical building will be a newly commissioned art installation by internationally renowned artist, Liz West. The installation, Sevenfold, will mark the completion of this project to transform one of the North’s leading cultural live music, theatre and arts venues located in the heart of Bury.
  
The site-responsive piece will inject vibrant colours and a sense of illusion into the magnificent entrance and staircase of the Victorian neo-classical building.  Light is very important to Liz’s work, and this is a space that is flooded with natural light, which Sevenfold will draw upon to highlight the architecture and magnificence of The Met’s 1840s architecture.   

Sevenfold takes its reference from Newton’s rainbow sequence of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Seven (six prisms in the main installation plus one mini above the reception desk) individual and vast prisms have been created that use mirrors to further radiate colour and reflect elements of the beautifully restored architecture. As visitors ascend the staircase they find themselves at eye level with the artwork, giving the chance to marvel Sevenfold at its luminous best.  

David Agnew, artistic director of The Met, says, “We wanted to celebrate the light and sense of rejuvenation that the restoration of this stunning building has opened up and embraced.  The vision of this project is to use the past to illuminate the future, which Liz’s piece perfectly embodies.  As people enter the building they’ll be able to enjoy the visual spectacle of Sevenfold as it radiates against the vastness and intricacy of the Victorian plasterwork.”   

Liz West says, “I am delighted to be given this opportunity to make my first permanent installation, it is an honour to be asked to make a new work in such an magnificent and multi-purpose setting. The light-based, theatrical and immersive nature of my work ties in perfectly with The Met and the buildings use. I hope that visitors enjoy my work for many years to come and are able to see new elements within the installation every time they look at the piece.”   

The refurbishment project has allowed a re-imagination of The Met, which occupies the space of Derby Hall.  Built by the 13th Earl of Derby, Derby Hall shares its architect, Sydney Smirke, with the circular reading room at the British Museum.  It’s always been one of Bury’s grandest civic buildings having begun life as a Public Rooms, it’s also been used as the Town Hall, council building and since 1979, as Bury Metropolitan Arts Association.    

To see more about the plans for the building visit www.themet.biz/better To see more about Liz West’s work visit www.liz-west.com

 

Liz West makes new work Our Colour for Bristol Biennial

Liz West | Our Colour
Bristol Biennial

Exhibition open 10am - 7pm until 10 September 2016

What does it feel like to be inside a colour? Does colour change the way you feel? For the 2016 edition of the Bristol Biennial Liz West invites visitors to drench themselves in the spectrum.

West has transformed architectural space and turned colour into an immersive and embodied experience by refracting light through carefully arranged coloured theatre gels. A vivid world is created, exploring our individual visual perception and how colour affects our senses.

This new artwork is part of a series by artist Liz West under the umbrella title Your Colour Perception that began in a residency at Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Federation House last year in Manchester. Our Colour is an immersive light installation, developed with experts and designed as an experiment in human colour perception. Using light as a sculptural material, the artist explores the physical, emotional and psychological effects of colour within a space.

Liz says “Most people rarely have the experience of being completely immersed in pure colour. I observe that after moving through the space – walking, running, dancing – and experiencing every colour, people often go back to the colour they find most comfortable; they will then stand, sit or lay there for some time to reflect.”  

For further details about Our Colour, opening times and information about the future projects please visit www.liz-west.com or bristolbiennial.org

Bristol Biennial
The Pithay
Bristol
BS1 2LZ

Free Entry
#OurColour

Liz West brings Our Colour Reflection installation to Grade I listed Mayfair building

Grosvenor Britain & Ireland is hosting Liz West’s ‘Our Colour Reflection’ installation at the St Mark’s building, a former church on North Audley Street, Mayfair, from 4-17 July 2016. The ten-day exhibition is open to the public and free to attend.

The exhibition is part of a wider initiative to open up the space to the public before it undergoes a £5m repair and restoration programme starting later this year. Grosvenor plans to redevelop this West End landmark heritage building to create a new retail, restaurant and community hub. The building will provide a meeting space for the community as well as 14,500 sq ft of shops and restaurants when it reopens to the public in late 2017.

Liz West, artist, said: “I am delighted to be given the opportunity to exhibit my site-specific work “Our Colour Reflection” within the beautiful architecture of St Mark’s in London. Our Colour Reflection creates a conversation between the viewer and the setting using more than 765 mirrors made of coloured acrylic. There are 15 colours in all and the mirrors with diameters of 30, 40, 50 and 60cm are set at different heights so that they reflect up onto the architecture and reveal parts of the building that would otherwise be invisible, projecting colour up into the historic interior.”

Will Bax, Placemaking Director, London estate at Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for the public to see inside one of the West End’s most historic buildings and a chance to enjoy the work of a renowned British artist. We are looking forward to seeing how Liz’s work showcases the building’s beautiful architecture and striking features for all to appreciate.

More information: http://www.grosvenor.com/news-views-research/news/2016/grosvenor-launches-art-exhibition-at-grade-i-liste/

Liz West presents Our Colour Reflection at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre

Liz West 
Our Colour Reflection
14 May - 25 June 2016

20-21 Visual Arts Centre is delighted to present Our Colour Reflection, an ambitious new work by artist Liz West. The installation will transform the interior of the former St John’s Church building housing the gallery by using over 700 mirrors to reflect the gallery lighting into the roofspace, projecting colour up into the historic interior. Viewers will see themselves in the mirrored surfaces as they explore the space - creating a dialogue between viewer, artwork and architecture. 

Liz West creates installations that use light and colour to transform spaces, and people’s experience of them. She aims to provoke a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer, tapping into our deeply entrenched relationship with colour, and exploring how it can move viewers, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.

Based in Manchester, Liz West studied at The Glasgow School of Art. Previous large-scale works have included Your Colour Perception, which had visitors returning to Manchester’s Federation House time and time again to witness the space saturated in colour, and her acclaimed installation An Additive Mix at the National Media Museum. Recent months have seen her shortlisted for the prestigious Aesthetica Art Prize, receiving a Bursary Award from the Royal Society of British Sculptors, and complete a major public-realm commission in the Spinningfields district of Manchester.

Our Colour Reflection has been made possible by funding from The National Lottery through Arts Council England. 

Friday 13 May 2016 
Launch Event 7pm to 10pm  
Coinciding with the national Museums at Night event, Liz West and 20-21 Visual Arts Centre invite you to the launch of Our Colour Reflection. The event includes activities suitable for all ages, and include interventions by video and installation artist Gillian Hobson from 8.30pm. 

Saturday 25 May 2016 
Drop-in Family Workshop with Liz West 10am to 4pm
 Join artist Liz West to create a new temporary artwork in the gallery education room. Suitable for all ages. Children remain the responsibility parents/ carers at all times. 10am to 4pm, free, drop-in.

20-21 Visual Arts Centre 
Church Square
Scunthorpe
North Lincolnshire
DN15 6TB 

Open Tuesday to Saturday
10am to 4pm
Free Entry 
Tel: 01724 297070 

About 20-21 Visual Arts Centre 20-21
 Visual Arts Centre is a North Lincolnshire Council cultural services venue and is supported by funding from Arts Council England as part of their National Portfolio of venue. Set in the neo-gothic former St John’s Church building just outside Scunthorpe town centre, the building hosts a busy café and shop and hosts a varied programme of contemporary art, design and craft exhibitions. Since opening in 2001 the gallery has received over 500,000 visitors. The building has recently undergone a £600,000 refurbishment.

Liz West - Coming up this Spring

Through No. 3, 2015. Photo credit: Adam Pester Photography

Spring is coming... 

I have been overwhelmed with your kind responses to my first public art commission Through No. 3. Originally destined to only be shown for 6 weeks over the Christmas period, the work is on view indefinitely in Spinningfields, Manchester. If you are in Manchester over the next few months, be sure to track it down, especially if it is a rare sunny day! 

I am delighted to have recently been shortlisted for this years Aesthetica Art Prize and will be exhibiting work in the Art Prize exhibition Opening on 13 April at York St. Mary's. Having been chosen to receive one of the RBS Bursary Awards, I will be showing brand new work in the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary group exhibition, previewing on 16 March. Also, I am honoured to have my work presented in a new Thames & Hudson publication 'Lumitecture: Illuminating Interiors For Designers & Architects' by Anna Yudina, which is out now. 

Over the Spring months there will be several opportunities to see and experience my work. Below I have listed some upcoming opportunities that you may be interested in. You can find more information about my work by visiting www.liz-west.com.

New Site-Specific Installation



Liz will be artist-in-residence and unveiling a brand new installation at Light + Building in Frankfurt on 14th and 15th March.

Complementary Saturation is a new site-specific spatial installation exploring the relationship between complementary colours and on the people experiencing them. The work has been commissioned by the International Association of Lighting Designers and sponsored by Lumenpulse.

Liz will be giving a free artist talk as part of the IALD's Lighting Perspectives seminar at 10.45am on 14th March. Click HERE for more information.












 

Upcoming Group Exhibition

Liz will be showing new works in the Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS) Bursary exhibition. Each year the RBS Bursary Awards are given to 10 early career artists working in 3 dimensions judged to be of outstanding talent. Integral to the society’s aim to promote the diverse language of contemporary sculpture, the Bursary Awards provide a platform to emerging sculptors to realise their full potential in the professional sphere.  

Preview: 16 March 2016, 6.30 - 8.30pm. Open from 17 March - 20 May 2016, Wednesday - Friday 12.30 - 5.30pm (or by appointment).


 

Shortlisted for Art Prize

Liz has been shortlisted for this years Aesthetica Art Prize and exhibition. Showcasing cutting-edge practice from today’s ground-breaking contemporary artists.

Celebrating individual mediums whilst recognising the richness of interdisciplinary practice, the 2016 selection is distributed across the categories of Photographic and Digital Art; Painting and Drawing; Three Dimensional Design and Sculpture, and Video, Installation and Performance. Open from 14 April - 31 May 2016 at York St. Mary's.




Work in New Publication

Liz has work presented in the new Thames & Hudson publication Lumitecture: Illuminating Interiors for Designers and Architects which was released on 29 February. Author Anna Yudina not only pursues the question, "What is light?" but also offers insight on 200 projects that demonstrate its transformative power.

Yudina has organised the book around three sections. First, there's light as it transforms space. Second, Yudina addresses lighting that alters one's perception of time. Finally, the author taps into light's power over emotion. Within each section, sub-categories like "color power" and materialization, daylight and contrast, all factor in. The work is comprehensive and up-to-date but its most powerful attribute is the revelation of light's true potential.







Commission Awarded

Take A Part CIC, Stonehouse Action and Stonehouse community members are thrilled to announce that artist Liz West has been commissioned to develop a new exciting public artwork to respond to the diversity and heritage in Stonehouse, Plymouth.
Liz West was selected via a co-commissioning process with Take A Part CIC, Stonehouse Action and Stonehouse Action’s community members leading to a co-written artist brief which outlined the aims of a commissioned public artwork - the need for humour, warmth, playfulness, spectacle and permanence. Out of numerous applications from the UK and Europe, Stonehouse Action members selected the artist Liz West."

Take A Part CIC Director Kim Wide says, ‘We are thrilled to have Liz working with us on this project which will be vibrant and reflective of the area’s past and future.’ The commission will be completed by June 2016.







 

Exhibition Announcement

Liz West has been awarded Arts Council England Grants for the Arts funding towards a forthcoming major solo exhibition Our Colour Reflection at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, opening in May 2016.  

For Our Colour Reflection Liz will present an ambitious new installation using hundreds of coloured mirrors to transform the Neo-Gothic interior of the former St John’s Church building. The work will both reflect viewers as they look  at the work, and send colour up into the roof-space of the historic building – creating a dialogue between viewer, artwork and architecture. Exact dates and more information to follow shortly.


In the Press
Liz's work has recently been featured in several international publications and online editorial. Here are links to a few articles that have featured work which you might be interested in reading:

Mondo*Arc Magazine p.35-36
Total Lighting Magazine p. 20-21
ATTITUDE Interior Design Magazine
Architectural Lighting Magazine
The Creators Project
FRAME Magazine
Young Artists in Conversation (YAC)  

Liz West in New Thames & Hudson Publication

Liz West has works in the forthcoming Thames & Hudson publication 'LUMITECHURE Illuminating Interiors for Designers & Architects' by Anna Yudina. The book will be released in hardcover on the 29th February 2016.

"The role of light in architecture extends well beyond practical requirements. Light can create an environment, saturate a space with emotion, and compose spatial illusions. When manipulated in the right ways, light makes an architectural space livable, shapes it, and guides the inhabitant through it. As our homes and buildings become increasingly interactive and connected to the “internet of things” (where physical objects such as a lamp or microwave are programmed in the “cloud”), the creative possibilities for lighting are growing exponentially.

This timely publication captures the most imaginative ideas for the use of light in homes and buildings. Some 200 projects are organized into three sections: lighting that transforms space, lighting that alters the experience of time, and lighting that evokes emotion or psychological change. Projects range from design solutions— practical applications and techniques for improving the ambience and function of our spaces for living and working—to highly experimental or immersive experiences that induce physiological responses or use entirely new sources of light, such as bioluminescence or rarefied gasses."

More information: 
http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/lumitecture-illuminating-interiors-for-designers-and-architects-hardcover 

Buy the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumitecture-Illuminating-Interiors-Architects-Anna-Yudina/dp/0500518343

Liz West at Light + Building, Frankfurt

The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) has announced the full program for IALD Lighting Perspectives, its two-day seminar at Light + Building 2016 this March in Frankfurt, Germany. This one-track conference features individual drop-in sessions provided to Light + Building attendees free of charge.

During IALD Lighting Perspectives, architectural lighting designers from around the world will give 60 minute talks – ranging from collaborative success stories to the latest technological discoveries – but the common theme among all of these perspectives is an insight on the light where these cutting edge designers work and live.

Next door to the sessions, IALD welcomes one and all to the Designers Lounge, featuring an installation by light artist Liz West. The IALD has involved the talents of West to make the Designers Lounge an appealing space to meet and connect with others – and with light! West’s work focuses on the human reaction to pure colour. In 2015, she exhibited more than twelve works in the United Kingdom, including the internationally acclaimed Your Colour Perception.

As a contributor to IALD Lighting Perspectives, West will be speaking during her session about her past works, her design theory, and her newest creation for the Designer’s Lounge.

Liz West will be speaking at Light+Building IALD Lighting Perspectives on Monday 14th March at 10:45 – 11:45am. Her talk REAL COLOUR: LIGHT AS MATERIAL will focus on the uses of light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She will speak about her past works and future projects as well as her journey of becoming an artist.

Feature in Attitude Interior Design Magazine (Jan/Feb 2016)

Thank you to Attitude Interior Design Magazine for this wonderful 4-page feature on my current practice.

Photographs of Through No.3 in Spinningfields

Image credit: MDP Photography