Liz West Exhibition in Cardiff

Arcadecardiff is delighted to present the first exhibition in Wales by Liz West. Comprising new light work made site-specifically, the exhibition Zenith Blue + Primary Red features a physical demonstration of colour mixing and optics which fills the space with radiant colour and luminous light for visitors to explore.

Liz West uses multiple fluorescent sticklights to create intense colour blocks flooding the entire space with saturate light. By mixing primary red and zenith blue coloured light together, West demonstrates colour mixing in practice as the space is flooded with mauve and magenta. When the human eye focuses for a duration on either colour block, the complementary colour will be left on our retina as an afterimage when we turn away or close our eyes.

West creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. Reacting to the architectural space of Arcadecardiff, West has created a site-specific installation work which has transformed the room into an immersive and sensory experience. West aims to provoke a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer through her works. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.   

"Light is a wonderfully diverse material,” West explains. “I enjoy working with it as has the power to completely transform space and become a

--> physical and tangible entity for people to explore, feel and interact with” she says. “Saturate colour has the curious ability to conjure long forgotten memories and experiences. The meaning of each colour differs for each individual, making the exhibition a personal and sensory experience”. West added, “My interest in creating intense environments using artificial lights comes from my own need to be surrounded by light to trigger feelings of well-being as I have Seasonal Affective Disorder.” Liz West was the recipient of the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award in 2015 and is most widely known for her chromatic light installations which often take the form of immersive environments using the notions of colour theory and the science of light together to create optical and sensory experiences. 
  

 
Private Viewing: 6-8pm Wednesday 16 December 2015
Artist Talk: 12pm Thursday 17 December
Opening times: 12:30pm – 5:30pm. Wednesday to Saturday
 

ARCADECARDIFF
Unit 3b
Queens Arcade
Queen Street
Cardiff
CF10 2BY

www.liz-west.com

www.arcadecardiff.co.uk

Exhibition: Assaulting the Asphalt at Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Assaulting The Asphalt - LIZ WEST 

IN THE WINDOW EXHIBITION 

Dec 17th, 2014 - Jan 11th, 2015   

Assaulting the Asphalt explores Liz West’s research into the relationship colours have to each other and how they affect the spaces they inhabit.  

West's investigation into the relationship between colour and light is often realised through an engagement between materiality and a given site. Within physical and architectural space, West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She playfully refracts light through using translucent, transparent or reflective materials, directing the flow of artificial light. Our understanding of colour can only be realised through the presence of light. By playing and adjusting colour, West brings out the intensity and composition of her spatial arrangements.  

These ephemeral interventions forge new spaces and environments, by flooding a physical site with a rich mixture of light. By limiting her use of materials, West simultaneously challenges herself to focus on arrangements rather than an array of colours. In a recent series of spatial light works based on research into colour theory and light fields she has transformed architectural spaces.  

The saturated light in this work casts sumptuously vivid colour reflections out of its container, through the window and reflects onto the asphalt below. The Winter darkness outside raises the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work.  

Luminous colours are “colours that escape their containers and bleed onto the street; they deliver what colour always promises but doesn’t always achieve: a release from the surfaces and materials that support it, a release that leads to the fleeting magic of the ‘fiery pool reflecting in the asphalt’.” 

– David Batchelor (The Luminous and the Grey, Reaktion Books, 2014)