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 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 in New Thames & Hudson Publication

Liz West has works in the forthcoming Thames & Hudson publication 'LUMITECHURE Illuminating Interiors for Designers & Architects' by Anna Yudina. The book will be released in hardcover on the 29th February 2016.

"The role of light in architecture extends well beyond practical requirements. Light can create an environment, saturate a space with emotion, and compose spatial illusions. When manipulated in the right ways, light makes an architectural space livable, shapes it, and guides the inhabitant through it. As our homes and buildings become increasingly interactive and connected to the “internet of things” (where physical objects such as a lamp or microwave are programmed in the “cloud”), the creative possibilities for lighting are growing exponentially.

This timely publication captures the most imaginative ideas for the use of light in homes and buildings. Some 200 projects are organized into three sections: lighting that transforms space, lighting that alters the experience of time, and lighting that evokes emotion or psychological change. Projects range from design solutions— practical applications and techniques for improving the ambience and function of our spaces for living and working—to highly experimental or immersive experiences that induce physiological responses or use entirely new sources of light, such as bioluminescence or rarefied gasses."

More information: 
http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/lumitecture-illuminating-interiors-for-designers-and-architects-hardcover 

Buy the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumitecture-Illuminating-Interiors-Architects-Anna-Yudina/dp/0500518343

Liz West at Light + Building, Frankfurt

The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) has announced the full program for IALD Lighting Perspectives, its two-day seminar at Light + Building 2016 this March in Frankfurt, Germany. This one-track conference features individual drop-in sessions provided to Light + Building attendees free of charge.

During IALD Lighting Perspectives, architectural lighting designers from around the world will give 60 minute talks – ranging from collaborative success stories to the latest technological discoveries – but the common theme among all of these perspectives is an insight on the light where these cutting edge designers work and live.

Next door to the sessions, IALD welcomes one and all to the Designers Lounge, featuring an installation by light artist Liz West. The IALD has involved the talents of West to make the Designers Lounge an appealing space to meet and connect with others – and with light! West’s work focuses on the human reaction to pure colour. In 2015, she exhibited more than twelve works in the United Kingdom, including the internationally acclaimed Your Colour Perception.

As a contributor to IALD Lighting Perspectives, West will be speaking during her session about her past works, her design theory, and her newest creation for the Designer’s Lounge.

Liz West will be speaking at Light+Building IALD Lighting Perspectives on Monday 14th March at 10:45 – 11:45am. Her talk REAL COLOUR: LIGHT AS MATERIAL will focus on the uses of light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She will speak about her past works and future projects as well as her journey of becoming an artist.

Through No. 3 by Liz West

Castlefield Gallery is excited to be working in partnership with Allied London in commissioning artist Liz West to create a brand new installation for Spinningfields, Manchester.

Through No. 3 will be a six-metre long triangular corridor of light and colour installed on Crown Square in Spinningfields from the 25 November 2015 to Wednesday 6 January 2016.

Hot from her major commission An Additive Mix at National Media Museum, Bradford and a Bursary Award from the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Through No.3 continues West’s exploration of colour and light as primary material for artwork. The walk-through structure will encourage visitors to literally look at their surroundings in a different light.

Working across a variety of mediums, West creates vivid environments with the aim of provoking a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can evoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour. Her intuitive and often playful approach to making sculpture and art installations leads to visually rich works that viewers cannot fail but to be drawn into. Underpinning West’s practice is Josef Albers’ colour theories and his Bauhaus teachings, which she references alongside an informed understanding of Newtonian optics and Goethe’s theory of visual perception.

After graduating The Glasgow School of Art in 2007, West now lives and works in Manchester. She was recently commissioned by the Science Museum London to create a new installation for the National Media Museum, Bradford; she exhibited at The Crypt in Leeds Town Hall for Light Night Leeds (9 Oct 2015), and has recently been announced as one of 10 winners of the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Awards 2015.

The commissioning of Through No.3 has been managed by Castlefield Gallery. “It has been a pleasure to work with Allied London properties, and Chief Executive Michael Ingall throughout the commissioning and development of this new artwork for Spinningfields. Michael understands the importance of artists and creative practitioners to place making, and so it is fantastic to have had Allied London’s commitment to the delivery of this exciting new artwork by artist Liz West for Spinningfields.” Kwong Lee, director, Castlefield Gallery.

Press enquiries: For further information, to request images or to arrange interviews, please contact: Jennifer Dean, Communications and Audience Development Coordinator on jennifer@castlefieldgallery.co.uk or call +44 (0)161 832 8034 - See more at: http://www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/news/through-no-3-by-liz-west/#sthash.QYuT9pSy.dpuf

Liz West Awarded Major Commission at National Media Museum

Light Fantastic season celebrates the UNESCO International Year of Light.    

Liz West's new light installation will take centre stage in a season of free events at the National Media Museum, celebrating the UNESCO International Year of Light.

Manchester-based artist Liz West has been commissioned by the Museum to create a brand new £30,000 installation inspired by the theme. It comprises a purpose-built 10m x 5m room containing approximately 300 coloured fluorescent tubes combined with ‘infinity’ mirrors. Titled An Additive Mix, it takes the principle that white light is composed of different colours of the spectrum (additive colours) and places people in the centre of the phenomenon; saturating them in individual hues that collectively create an intense white glow in a seemingly endless space.

An Additive Mix, which is free to enter and designed to be enjoyed by all ages, builds on themes developed in West’s previous works - most recently the acclaimed Your Colour Perception, which was described as ‘walking through a rainbow’. The new work, West’s largest commission to date, turns this occurrence in natural science on its head; reassembling the diffracted colours of the rainbow and projecting them to ‘infinity’ as visitors explore.

Liz West said:    

“This is a body of work that I have dreamed of being able to make for a number of years. To be given the opportunity as part of the Museum’s celebration of light is thrilling and very fitting.”    

“Artworks I remember seeing as a child are the ones in which I was completely immersed, and that’s what I hope An Additive Mix will achieve: taking people out of the ordinary into the extraordinary, and staying in their memories for a long time."  

Light Fantastic: Adventures in the Science of Light (18 July – 1 November), forms part of the National Media Museum’s Festival of Light. Throughout 2015 the festival, inspired by the UNESCO Year of Light, will be home to exhibits, family activities, a series of contemporary science events, a Lates (late-night opening) and more.

Entrance and activities are free.

Contact: Phil Oates, Press Officer, phil.oates@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk, 01274 203317.