Its still glowing... Installing in Stoke-on-Trent

Liz West, 

In The Window: Assaulting the Asphalt
(No.22 Magical Magenta & Oklahoma Yellow) and (No.23 Jade & Magical Magenta)
300(H) x 280(W) x 100(D) cm,
Cellulose acetate, tracing paper and fluorescent bulbs
2014

 

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)

Work published in USA journal Reunion: The Dallas Review

I am delighted to have recently had several of my works published in the University of Texas at Dallas annual arts journal, Reunion: The Dallas Review. My work was chosen for the front and back cover as well as an inside feature.

For over two decades, Reunion: The Dallas Review has been dedicated to finding and publishing exceptional examples of short fiction, drama, visual art, poetry, translation work, non-fiction, and interviews. Their mission is to cultivate the arts community in Dallas, Texas, and promote the work of talented writers and artists both locally and internationally.

The School of Arts & Humanities, the home of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Dallas, is not your conventional university department; they are a forward-thinking, interdisciplinary unit that offers degrees that cross the normal boundaries between art and science, language and literature, technology and philosophy.

For more information and how to purchase the journal please visit: www.utdallas.edu/ah/reunion

 

My work published in In The City catalogue

I have recently had my work published in a new book exploring perceptions of the city on a global scale. 'An Additive Mixture #2' was chosen to be printed in this zingy book which was published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name at Hanover Project, UCLAN, Preston.

Artists were invited to reflect current cultural, social and political subjects through engagements with the built environment in which they live and / or work. The exhibition and book is the result of an open call for submissions, and works have been received from artists working in Ireland, Sweden, UK, Portugal, Lithuania, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, USA, Austria, Israel, Romania, Germany, and Qatar. The book and exhibition were curated by Victoria Lucas.