Rogue Open Studios 2013

Rogue Open Studios 2013 is an exciting event taking place at Crusader Mill in Manchester, which annually draws thousands of visitors from across the UK. This year 88 resident artists will be showcased in their workspaces alongside special exhibitions in The Project Space and  Malgras|Naudet gallery.

The 2013 Open Studios exhibition runs from September 27th- 29th, with the preview event taking place from 6-9pm on Friday 27th. The opening hours over the weekend are 12-5pm daily. Crusader Mill is conveniently located on Chapeltown Street, five minutes’ walk from Piccadilly Station.

Rogue Open Studios offers fellow artists, curators, collectors and the general public an opportunity to meet the artists and to access all areas of the studios while affording studio members an opportunity to exhibit and offer work for sale. The event is unique in Manchester,  creating a showcase for so many professional artists free of charge to the public.

Rogue would love to see you at the opening party or over the weekend. Hope you can make it!

Mini documentary for solo presentation

Yesterday I was busy making a film about my practice for inclusion in my upcoming solo presentation 'On Brown & Violet Grounds'. The film; which includes an interview, tour around my studio and gallery of past work will be shown at Piccadilly Place and in my studio as part of this years Rogue Open Studios. It will tie the two locations together as I aim to show work in both venues as a duel exhibition.

Summer Newsletter

Hello! 

Being commissioned to make a new piece of work for this year’s Barnaby Festival was a great start to my summer. Thank you so much to those who make the journey to see the work and support me.

For those of you who couldn't make it to Macclesfield to see the work, photographs of the work can be seen here: Barnaby photos. It was decided that the work would be kept at the Grosvenor Centre after the festival had finished. The piece will be exhibited until the 15 September when it will move to my Manchester exhibition.

I was awarded an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts award is May this year. Since I have been busy working on a new body of work (including drawings and works on paper!). The new work will be shown at Piccadilly Place in my solo presentation On Brown & Violet Grounds. Don’t miss it!

Liz

Solo Presentation  |  On Brown & Violet Grounds

25 September – 2 October

On Brown &Violet Grounds is a new body of works by Liz West exploring her fascination with exuberant colour, sculptural form and intense light. Alongside a series of new light-based installations, West will also be exhibiting works on paper for the first time. Using un-conventional industrial and man-made materials, such as: electrical tape, aluminum and mirror, these pieces echo many of the materials utilized within her installation work. West’s two-dimensional explorations are driving new ideas within her practice and signal an important development from the successful colour-drenched Chamber series. 

Coinciding with The Manchester Contemporary, On Brown & Violet Grounds has been produced as a result of Liz West’s research and development award from Arts Council England. Further works on paper will be exhibited within West’s studio as part of this year’s Rogue Open Studios. 

Open 1-9pm daily and by appointment

www.liz-west.com

Piccadilly Place

Unit 4C/D

Manchester

M1 3BS

  

Exhibition  |  Rogue Open Studios 2013

Opening 27th September. Continues 28 – 29 September

Join me for the opening night of Rogue Open Studios, continuing over the whole weekend. Open Studios allows you a peek behind the doors (or curtains) of over 90 artists at work. Once a year Rogue opens it’s doors to the public in it’s Open Studios event inviting fellow artists, curators and the general public to access all areas of the studios while affording members an opportunity to exhibit and offer work for sale.

Liz will be showing new works on paper in her studio as a continuation to her work on show at Piccadilly Place. For more information, including opening times please visit: www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk

Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space

66-72 Chapeltown Street

Piccadilly

Manchester

M1 2WH

Event  |  Bury Light Night

11 October

I am thrilled to be working with The Hamilton Project for Bury Light Night 2013. I will reconfigure my work ‘Consumed’ responding site-specifically to a space in the middle of the town centre.

Bury Light Night is a one night event that last year attracted 28,000 visitors into the Bury town centre to experience light art, culture, live music and artisan markets. 

www.thehamiltonproject.co.uk

Book  |  The Language of Mixed-Media Sculpture

Published in February 2014

Liz West will be published in a new publication written by award winning artist and an associate of the Royal British Society of Sculptors; Jac Scott. ‘The Language of Mixed-Media Sculpture’ will include 30 international artists and be published by The Crowood Press Ltd in February. 

Other artists to be featured are: Andre Woodward, Catherine Bertola, Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, Liliana Porter, Mary Giehl, Marilene Oliver, Pascale Pollier, Kate MccGwire, Niko Neelova, Michael Shaw, YaYa Chou, Yuebin Gong, Peter Freeman, Paul Moss, Rachel Allen, Eliza Bennett, Awst & Walther, Andrew Burton, Noam Ben-Javov, Ricardo O'Nascimento, Stelios Manganis, Mark Houghton, Janet Curley-Cannon, Cath Keay, Liz West, David Alesworth, Dorcas Casey and Andrea Hasler.  

www.jacscott.com                  

 

Blog  |  Have you read our blog yet?

Liz West and Alana Tyson met at World Event Young Artists in Nottingham as two participating visual artists. After spending 10 days together, they formed a close friendship and joint interest in the future of each other’s careers. Both share many interests, one being obsessive behaviour, which is often implemented in the making of their work.

Liz and Alana share their thoughts on this blog, discussing future exhibitions/works and inviting other artists to join in. 

http://haveyoureadourblogyet.wordpress.comhttp://haveyoureadourblogyet.wordpress.com

New lighting for Septembers solo exhibition

'On Brown & Violet Grounds' Solo Presentation by Liz West

On Brown & Violet Grounds is a new body of works by Liz West exploring her fascination with exuberant colour, sculptural form and intense light. Alongside a series of new light-based installations, West will also be exhibiting works on paper for the first time. Using un-conventional industrial and man-made materials, such as: electrical tape, aluminium and mirror, these pieces echo many of the materials utilized within her installation work. West’s two-dimensional explorations are driving new ideas within her practice and signal an important development from the successful colour-drenched Chamber series. 

Coinciding with The Manchester Contemporary, On Brown & Violet Grounds has been produced as a result of Liz West’s research and development award from Arts Council England. Further works on paper will be exhibited within West’s studio as part of this year’s Rogue Open Studios.

On Brown & Violet Grounds

25 September – 2 October 2013

4C/D Piccadilly Place, Manchester, M1 3BS

Open daily 1-9pm and by appointment (Tel: 07746507312)

Rogue Open Studios
27 – 29 September 2013
66-72 Chapeltown Street, Manchester, M1 2W
27 September, 6-9pm; 28-29 September, 11am-5pm

www.liz-west.com

Barnaby Artists 'In Conversation' with Whitworth Curator Bryony Bond

Barnaby 2013 is holding an ‘In Conversation’ event to help conclude the amazing visual arts programme of this year’s festival.

Barnaby's headline artists - Brass Art, Rachel Goodyear and Liz West discuss with Bryony Bond - curator at the Whitworth Gallery - What their experience of working in a town like Macclesfield represents for them.

As part of the discussion we will also examine - What the potential is for the development of visual arts in a town like Macclesfield, what are our aspirations, where do we go next?

Saturday 29th June 

Charles Roe House, Chestergate, Macclesfield
Attendance by invite only 

New Works: collage using reflective materials

I have had a productive day in the studio making new work. I have been expanding on my recent works on paper, progressing by using reflective materials such as plastic mirror, sticky-back mirror and PVA glue in conjunction with my typical saturate hues. I would say these works are more collage than drawings. Here are a few images as a taster of what I have been doing:

New Works on Paper

I have busy making new work in my studio for the last month or so. I wanted to share some new works on paper. These 'drawings' have been helping me develop ideas for future installations and sculptural works.

More new works can be seen here: Flickr.
They will shortly be added to my website: www.liz-west.com

Barnaby Festival 2013 - New Public Art Commission

Barnaby 2013 presents an exciting and contemporary visual arts programme including new site specific commissions by Brass Art, Rachel Goodyear and Liz West. 

Preview: Friday 14th June (6.30 - 9.30pm)

 

Three new contemporary art commissions have been produced for Barnaby 2013, funded by Arts Council England, featuring Brass Art, Rachel Goodyear, and Liz West as part of an exciting and packed programme for this year’s Festival in the heart of Macclesfield. Working in heritage buildings and an empty shop unit the artists reference the historic town of Macclesfield and explore themes of metamorphosis. This year has built upon the quality programming from preceding years, which has previously shown work by internationally acclaimed artists such as; David Shrigley, Ian Davenport, Ian Rawlinson and Nick Crowe.

Commissioned to work in an empty shop unit in Macclesfield’s Grosvenor Shopping Centre, LIZ WEST will use transparent object to create her largest site-specific installation to date, positioning found, disguarded and recycled objects on top of red, yellow and blue light boxes, encased within a Perspex museum-like case. West is influenced by the process of collecting, and her work specifically relates to the desire to gather and assemble objects, using colour and light to transform everyday things into new sculptural forms.

The town’s historic buildings, including Christ Church and Charles Roe House will be transformed by the commissions and an art trail of over 100 participating artists from the area during this year’s extended Barnaby Festival from 14-30 June 2013. Contemporary art will also be brought into the heart of the town's busy retail area, using an empty shop on the town’s main thoroughfare, Churchill Way where local young artists from the 'Magpie Thunder Bureau' project will create a pop-up print workshop and gallery.

Liz West:
‘Consumed’ - 15th - 30th June, Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Macclesfield - FREE 

 

For more information, please visit www.barnabyfestival.org.uk

New Works on Paper

Here's a sneak peep at a couple of my new works on paper. These are some of my preparatory studies for the Barnaby Festival commission.

 

 Consumed #13, Acyclic spray on paper, 29 x 21cm

 Consumed #4, Address labels & acyclic spray on paper, 42 x 29cm 

Progress on Barnaby Commission

A huge order of Perspex arrived to make part of the Barnaby Commission for The Grosvenor Centre.

It blocked up half my hallway for over a week. I was itching to get it into the studio and start constructing, however other elements of the work needed finishing before I could start this...

I fabricated the bases of the three light-boxes in my studio at Rogue Artist's Studios, they are due another few coats of paint before they are installed in The Grosvenor Centre. My next job is to line them all with foil and attach the lighting elements.

This week I have constructed the three perspex cases... photo's to come in my next post!

Works on paper

From the Beginning of May I started making a new body of work in light if my recent Arts Council England funding award. I have started by making works on paper; this is already helping to generate new ideas for future installations.

 

 Some of the above are preparatory drawings for Consumed; my Barnaby Festival commission.

 

Successful Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Funding

Liz West is delighted to announce that she has been awarded her second Grants for the Arts Award from Arts Council England. This will aid the research and development of a new body of work; funding her practice for another year.

The new work will be shown across two venues to coincide with Manchester Contemporary and Rogue Open Studios (27 - 29th September). New large scale work will be exhibited at Piccadilly Place, with smaller scale work and drawings on show at West's studio in Rogue. Information will be posted on the website shortly. www.liz-west.com

Sping Newsletter

Hello! 

Being commissioned to make a new piece of work to exhibit at Cornerhouse was a great way to start the year. For those of you who couldn't make it to the exhibition FOUR in Manchester, photographs of the work can be seen here:

Liz West Website

Cornerhouse Flickr 1

Cornerhouse Flickr 2

I have since been commissioned to make a new site-specific work, this time for Macclesfield's Barnaby Festival. Lots more information about that below. With recent news of my successful Arts Council England funding award, it's shaping up to be quite a year! 

Happy reading!

Liz

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Award

Grants for the Arts Funding

Liz West is delighted to announce that last week she has been awarded her second Grants for the Arts Award from Arts Council England. This will aid the research and development of a new body of work; funding her practice for another year.

The new work will be shown at this year's Rogue Open Studios (see below for more details) and in other venues across the North. Information will be posted on the website shortly. Keep checking back for updates!

www.liz-west.com

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New Commission & Exhibition

Barnaby Festival

Private View 14th June. Continues 15th - 30th June

Liz West has been invited to make a new site-specific work 'Consumed' for this year's Barnaby Festival in Macclesfield. West will take over an empty shop unit in the Grosvenor Shopping Centre to create a sensory experience using arrangements of found materials and consumer goods. In the work, objects will be arranged in orders and enclosed within constructed containers to form compacted colour masses, simultaneously reinventing the objects' identities whilst questioning how we categorise everyday items.

West is influenced by the process of collecting, her work specifically relates to the desire to gather and assemble objects, using colour and light to transform everyday things into new sculptural forms.

Barnaby has recently been awarded a grant from Arts Council England for this series of site-specific art commissions in Macclesfield. The grant enables nationally acclaimed artists such as Rachel Goodyear, Liz West, Hilary Jack and the artist collective Brass Art to showcase new site-specific commissions for Barnaby this year. 

www.barnabyfestival.org.uk//events

Grosvenor Shopping Centre

Market Place

Macclesfield

Cheshire

SK10 1DY

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Exhibition 

Rogue Open Studios

Launch 27th September. Continues 28th – 29th September.

Join us for the opening night of Rogue Open Studios, continuing over the whole weekend. Open Studios allows you a peek behind the doors (or curtains) of over 90 artists at work.

Once a year Rogue opens it’s doors to the public in it’s Open Studios event inviting fellow artists, curators and the general public to access all areas of the studios while affording members an opportunity to exhibit and offer work for sale.

This year's Rogue Open Studios is over the weekend of September 28th/29th with the opening party on Friday September 27th... Looking forward to seeing you then.

http://www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk

Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space

66-72 Chapeltown Street

Piccadilly

Manchester

M1 2WH

West to create new site-specific work for Macclesfield Barnaby Festival

Barnaby is thrilled to announce that Arts Council England has awarded the festival a grant of £40,000 for a series of site-specific art commissions in Macclesfield’s historic town centre.

The grant, spread over two years, enables nationally acclaimed artists such as Rachel Goodyear, Liz West, the artist collective Brass Art, and Macclesfield-based Hilary Jack to showcase their work this year.

New site-specific commissions for Barnaby 2013, include:
HILARY JACK who will create an installation in the Savage Tower using silk thread salvaged from Spurcroft Mill in Macclesfield, which recently closed. Jack will weave a series of large-scale ‘webs’ inside the tower, using a traditional ‘pin and thread’ technique to highlight the town’s jacquard silk heritage. The webs will also symbolise the entrapment of Macclesfield anchoress Dame Joan, who lived in the tower in the early 16th century. The colours of the silk – gold, red, purple, royal blue and white – are associated with religious ceremony and will catch the light, throwing shadows and creating a sense of the otherworldly.

LIZ WEST will use single-coloured objects to create her largest site-specific installation to date, covering the floor space of an empty shop unit in the Grosvenor Shopping Centre with the flotsam and jetsam of life. West is influenced by the process of collecting, and her work specifically relates to the desire to gather and assemble objects, using colour and light to transform everyday things into new sculptural forms.

BRASS ART will exhibit ‘The Messengers No 2’, three gigantic inflatable heads (each measuring 3 meters in length), in Christ Church. The heads, inspired by classical images of Hypnos, the god of sleep, are created using biomedical facial scans of the three artists who make up Brass Art. One of the heads was commissioned for the Tatton Park Biennial in 2012.

Internationally acclaimed artist RACHEL GOODYEAR will show a collection of beautiful drawings and a rarely seen film in Charles Roe House on Chestergate. ‘Thought Spill’ is a series of intricate sketches that have been framed and clustered together to form a narrative. The film, ‘Woodman 2011’ was originally created for her solo show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Viewed in a darkened room, the strange solitary figure on the screen is given a life by subtle changes to the illustration and a haunting sound track.

The Grants for the arts award will also fund new commissions for Barnaby Festival 2014, including proposed work by The Owl Project, ceramicist Tom Barnett and contemporary sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon, as well as opportunities for the public to engage with artists at both festivals.

Anna Riordan, Barnaby Visual Arts Director, says: “This award represents a significant development for Macclesfield Barnaby Festival in terms of impact, ambition and public engagement. It will enable us to secure more nationally recognised artists and to form partnerships with other commissioning bodies for 2014. By engaging with the community, building partnerships and drawing on a regional audience we hope it will contribute to a cultural renaissance in Macclesfield.”

Taken from www.barnabyfestival.org.uk
Barnaby Festival runs from 14 - 30th June 2014

Axisweb & Artplayer's Film about Artist Liz West

In July 2012 Axisweb were the lucky recipients of Artplayer's £5K video services competition. They thought they'd use this to highlight a success story that one of their artist members received through Axisweb's opportunity service. Liz West applied for an open call to exhibit at Cornerhouse, Manchester which resulted in her being selected for 'Four', an exhibition developed by Cornerhouse's young curators Liz Gibson, Alex Leigh and Neetu Roy. In this film created by Artplayer, Liz talks about the benefits of being a member of Axisweb and the new work she's created for the exhibition.

A big thank you to Mike at Artplayer, Axisweb, Liz West and Marisa Draper at Cornerhouse for making this film possible!

'Four' runs at Cornerhouse, Manchester until 24 February 2013

axisweb.org/artplayer-film
cornerhouse.org/art/art-exhibitions/four
artplayer.tv

Studio Play (development)

I am currently working on new ideas in my studio (Rogue Artists Studios - Manchester). I am starting on a new exciting body of ideas that will hopefully lead to some developed/new work. I wanted to share with you some recent ideas I have been having (below). I aim to keep posting to keep you up-to-date with what I have been making.

Liz West new commission in FOUR exhibition at Cornerhouse