The Light Room - Your Colour Perception Exhibition in Hampshire

 

The Sainsbury Gallery at the Willis Museum will be immersed in a kaleidoscope of rainbow lights as artist Liz West brings her exhibition, The Light Room - Your Colour Perception, to the Hampshire Cultural Trust venue on November 7.

Liz creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological, physical and emotional responses that tap into deeply entrenched relationships to colour.

This exciting artist, who has exhibited both nationally and internationally, will transform the Sainsbury Gallery into a magical rainbow of light for visiting art lovers to wander through. The experiential exhibition will invite visitors to question their reactions to the intensity of light and colour.

Liz will individually wrap each lamp in coloured filters to create the vast rainbow effect in the gallery.

Liz said: "My interest into the science of light and colour is ongoing and has been integral to all of my works in the last couple of years, even the work I made on my degree was steeped in rich colour mixing and awareness. Colour can conjure long forgotten memories in the same way that other sensory experiences, such as certain smells or sounds, can be reminders of vivid past events.

"I find that reactions differ depending on age. In the past as young people entered the space they immediately took the opportunity to run as fast as they could from one end of the room to the other!"

Janet Owen, chief executive officer at Hampshire Cultural Trust, said: 

"We're delighted to be exhibiting Liz West's extraordinary art at the Willis Museum's Sainsbury Gallery. It’s a truly immersive experience that visitors will lose themselves in. Liz's work has been recognised as world-class and we're proud to be bringing her to Basingstoke."

Liz graduated from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art in 2007 and has exhibited around the UK and abroad. Her work has been recognised in international awards and this year she was one of just 10 artists to win a RBS Bursary Award from the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

The Light Room - Your Colour Perception will be at the Sainsbury Gallery until 2 January.

Willis Museum and Sainsbury Gallery 
Market Place 
Basingstoke   
RG21 7QD

Tuesday to Friday 10am - 5pm     

Saturday 10am - 4pm

hampshireculturaltrust.org.uk/event/light-room

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

Liz West talks about her practice for new LEE Filters mini-documentary

An Additive Mix is Liz West's most ambitious installation, incorporating a purpose build 10m x 5m room with infinity mirrors and 250 6ft fluorescent lamps at the National Media Museum, Bradford. The new work has been developed over the past seven months to form part of the exhibition Light Fantastic: Adventures in the Science of Light which celebrates the UNESCO International Year of Light.

The new work, West’s largest commission to date, turns this occurrence of natural science on its head; reassembling the diffracted colours of the rainbow and projecting them to ‘infinity’ as visitors explore the space.

Within the installation 191 individual colours are combined with a surrounding series of mirrors, reflecting a dynamic and intense illumination throughout the space. An Additive Mix draws from the principle that white light comprises different colours of the spectrum, called additive colours, and immerses visitors in a physical actualization of the phenomenon. Those entering the exhibition space become completely saturated in varied hues that collectively create white light in a seemingly endless expanse.

Liz used hundreds of LEE Filters in the making of this new work, therefore LEE Filters decided to make a mini-documentary about Liz's practice and most recent works, including the development of An Additive Mix.

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.

Exhibitions & Events in March

Your Colour Perception  

Your Colour Perception was installed in Castlefield Gallery’s 5000 square feet New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor gallery in Manchester for a 2-day only exhibition on 31st January and 1st February. The work was developed in direct response to the space prior. West reacted to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art. 

West transformed Federation House into a sensory, visceral experience by overloading it with artificial chromatic light in which to test the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual responses visitors experience during their encounter. This work utilises the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using this enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months allowed the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year. 

Amongst the appreciation for Your Colour Perception were articles on BBC News: The Big Picture, Frame Magazine, urdesign mag, Professional Lighting Design Magazine, Illumni, Creative Boom, The Creator's Project, Hi Home Magazine (Russia), Trendland and Design Boom to name a few. As a result Liz will be collaborating with the International Association of Lighting Designers and BDP in April for an artists talk in Manchester. Details to follow.    

Unnatural Pleasures, Radiant Space, Plymouth 
27 February - 17 April 

The latest in the R[eff]uge series, supported by Arts Council England and Plymouth University, UNNATURAL PLEASURES focuses on synthesised experiences and the discomfort which is often the unfortunate by-product of attempts to comfort ourselves through man-made items. Liz West has made new site-specific work Complementary Afterimage which uses multiple fluorescent sticklights to create intense colour blocks flooding the entire space with purple light. Featuring work by Liz West, Alana Tyson, David Sargeant, Johanna Schmeer and Yvette Hawkins.   

Subjective Mixtures #1, Bloc Projects Billboard Commission, Sheffield 
2 - 30 March  

Liz West’s new work Subjective Mixtures #1 was created in situ for the Bloc Billboard on Jessop Street, Sheffield. West explores drawing as something not confined to two dimensions. During the creation of her work, whether making arrangements of objects and lights or drawing on paper, she uses elements of composition and arrangement to experiment with colour and space, often creating work is that is harmonious with its surroundings and examines our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour. 

West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers, highlighting its significance within our understanding of colour. Her interventions and installations forge new spaces and environments, in which colour floods a physical site through a rich layering of light or disrupts the flatness of white paper.    

Through - Liz West, &Model, Leeds 
 11 - 29 March 

Within physical architectural spaces, Liz 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. These ephemeral interventions forge new spaces and environments, by flooding a physical site with a rich mixture of light. This project forms part of a recent series of spatial light works based on the artist’s research into colour theory and light fields. The saturated light in this work casts sumptuously vivid colour reflections out of its containing space, through the windows, and reflects onto the road below. In the evening the darkness outside raises the strength of the illumination and the colour intensity in the work. 

This work will be viewable from outside the gallery only.     

No Grey Areas, Ha Ha Gallery, Southampton
28 February - 14 March

A group exhibition in black and white featuring new monochrome work by Liz West. No sweet fades or indefinite transitions of colour. A sophisticated stripping down with the saturation off and the contrast from one to the other is complimentary and resolute. 


Fingers Crossed Pt.2, The Engine Room, Manchester
13 March

The second in a three part series of one-night-only group exhibitions featuring new work by Liz West. Each exhibition explores different approaches to luck, chance, accidents, fate, coincidence and superstition as a subject or a part of the creative process.  

 

 

Red Chamber @ Kraak Gallery (as part of Manchester Art Crawl)