Liz West to be included in Drawing for Scuplure exhibition at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre

Drawing for Sculptre
20-21 Visual Arts Centre
Exhibition opens 10 June - 7 October 2017  

Featuring everything from rough sketches and experimental artworks to detailed technical drawings and three-dimensional digital models, Drawing for Sculpture includes work from over 20 sculptors who use drawing as part of their creative process. Encompassing a wide range of materials and techniques, the show includes well-known names from Peter Mountain to Liz West.   

For many artists the disciplines of sculpture and drawing as inextricably linked. Some sculptors use drawing as a way of experimenting with ideas without the constraints of having to produce completed 3D objects, while other’s produce drawings as objects in themselves, embodying the same engagement with shape and material that they explore in their sculpture. Drawing for Sculpture features maker’s drawings across a wide variety of approaches, materials and techniques, accompanied by a series of maquettes and small sculptural objects in the gallery showcase. More information HERE.  

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

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 body of work in Leeds College of Art alumni exhibition

Liz West | Colour Wheel
Vernon Street Gallery, Leeds College of Art
Exhibition opens 15 December 2016 - 27 January 2017   

Leeds College of Art alumni close 170th year with a special ‘Colour Wheel’ exhibition

Throughout 2016 Leeds College of Art has been celebrating 170 years of delivering art education in Leeds. The College’s final alumni exhibition of the year features a trio of female contemporary artists, Georgina Starr, Liz West and Georgia Lucas-Going, who all studied at Leeds College of Art and have gone on to have highly successful careers. Working with colour, performance and sound, these three artists continue to demonstrate the reach, ambition and values of the College.     

The exhibition takes its overarching title from Liz West's planned installation 'Our Colour Wheel.' West wanted to go back to the literal and pedagogical 'Foundation' of her practice - the colour wheel as a teaching tool. She has invited 17 other artists, curators, teachers and friends from her past to submit their personal vision of a colour wheel to her. They will all be framed identically and installed as a grid format.     

This exhibition is the final installment in a programme of alumni group shows that have been held throughout the year at the Vernon Street Gallery in the College’s historic 1903 building, celebrating the diverse and ground breaking careers of past students and staff over the last 170 years. 
 

Our Colour Wheel, 2016. Image credit: Liz West / Fiona Grady

Our Colour Wheel, 2016. Image credit: Liz West

Our Colour Wheel, 2016. Image credit: Liz West / Helen Shaddock

Our Colour Wheel, 2016. Image credit: Liz West / Ric Warren

Our Colour Wheel, 2016. Image credit: Liz West / Garry Barker

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 presents new exhibition Autumn Lights at the National Trust's Little Moreton Hall

Liz West | Autumn Lights
Little Moreton Hall

Exhibition open 9 September - 17 November 2016  

Ancient hand blown glass in the windows of 16th century Little Moreton Hall is the inspiration behind the Hall’s first ever contemporary art exhibition, which opens this autumn. 

Autumn Lights, by British artist Liz West, has been commissioned by the National Trust as part of its Trust New Art programme, and is the start of an ongoing programme of work by contemporary artists taking place at Little Moreton Hall under the title The Senses.

“By bringing contemporary art installations into historic buildings such as Little Moreton Hall, we hope to add a new and exciting layer to our visitors’ experience” says Hannah Pierce, the Trust’s Contemporary Arts Programme Manager. “It also enables young, dynamic artists to create new work in spaces which wouldn’t normally be accessible, which can inspire and challenge their creative process.”   

Liz West has chosen to explore sight and vision, drawing inspiration from over thirty thousand lead window panes at Little Moreton Hall – and in particular, the glass they contain. “The ancient hand blown glass in the windows of Little Moreton Hall is tinted – very subtly – by trace impurities of copper, iron and magnesium” says Liz. “These historical ‘colourways’ will be the starting point for my artwork which will use natural light to visually alter visitors’ perceptions of the Hall’s many different spaces. These spaces can differ dramatically in atmosphere depending on the amount of light that’s present.”   

“By using prisms, filters, refraction and reflection, I want to create a spatial light trail through the Hall which will highlight elements of its architecture that are usually unnoticed or overlooked. This interplay of architecture, light and colour will constantly change as the sun’s natural light shifts through the Autumn season.”   

Autumn Lights, by Liz West opens at Little Moreton Hall on 9 September and runs until 27 November on days when the house is open. Find out more at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/littlemoretonhall.