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 talks about her practice for new LEE Filters mini-documentary

An Additive Mix is Liz West's most ambitious installation, incorporating a purpose build 10m x 5m room with infinity mirrors and 250 6ft fluorescent lamps at the National Media Museum, Bradford. The new work has been developed over the past seven months to form part of the exhibition Light Fantastic: Adventures in the Science of Light which celebrates the UNESCO International Year of Light.

The new work, West’s largest commission to date, turns this occurrence of natural science on its head; reassembling the diffracted colours of the rainbow and projecting them to ‘infinity’ as visitors explore the space.

Within the installation 191 individual colours are combined with a surrounding series of mirrors, reflecting a dynamic and intense illumination throughout the space. An Additive Mix draws from the principle that white light comprises different colours of the spectrum, called additive colours, and immerses visitors in a physical actualization of the phenomenon. Those entering the exhibition space become completely saturated in varied hues that collectively create white light in a seemingly endless expanse.

Liz used hundreds of LEE Filters in the making of this new work, therefore LEE Filters decided to make a mini-documentary about Liz's practice and most recent works, including the development of An Additive Mix.

Red Chamber @ Kraak Gallery (as part of Manchester Art Crawl)