Time Lapse Video of Your Colour Perception Installation

Time lapse video of my work Your Colour Perception showing the saturation of colour increase as day turns into night.

Imagine walking through a rainbow - Your Colour Perception

The last week has been crazy! I haven't even had a chance to blog!

On Tuesday (27th Jan) I started installing my new site-specific chromatic light work Your Colour Perception at Castlefield Gallery's New Art Spaces Federation House on it's vast fourth floor gallery space. It opened just 3 days later on Friday 30th Jan.

Those three days were hard work, spending the whole time up ladders, wrapping cellulose theatre gels around each individual fluorescent bulb in a huge 5000 square foot space. There were hundreds of them...

I decided to begin with blue at the outwardly facing end of the room, reason being; as the day turns into night there is a 20 minute slot when the sky turns an amazing luminous sapphire. I wanted the work to extend out of the space and into the sky at this special time of day.

After decided which colour (either green or indigo) to continue into, I cracked on with my installation, moving from one colour to the next throughout the entire space, until it was full of chromatic and saturate light.

On Thursday evening I finished install and spent Friday tidying up, and having time to go clothes shopping with my mum.

Your Colour Perception incorporated all 5000 square feet of Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor in Manchester. 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.

Within this work, West was interested in the influence and perception of luminous colour in architectural space and on visitors experiencing it. 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.

At 6pm the doors to the space opened (via a phone number people had a ring on the door downstairs to gain entry into the building) and people started trickling in. A healthy 130 people turned up to my preview and I had some wonderful and meaningful conversations about your colour perception, how it affected people mentally, emotionally, psychically and even spiritually. Other's seemed to be having similar conversations as well as spending time dancing, walking slowly, running, sitting and meditating in the space.

The work is extremely photogenic - I know that! Visitors started taking photographs of the work (which even looked good on a camera phone) and sending them to their friends, family and sharing on social media. I went to bed that night feeling happy and content, not aware of the success and buzz I had created...

Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles

Until... until we were on out way into the space on Saturday. The phone number was still fixed to Federation House outside door and our phone was already ringing with people wanting to get in to see what all the fuss was about. I opened from 2-8pm both Saturday and Sunday, making the most of the darker winter nights.

I should add that normally I am not keen on letting images of my work circulate before the exhibition is over, but on this occasion it helped. People wanted the experience of being inside this magical colour, the opportunity to feel what it might be like to walk around inside a rainbow!

Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles

I expected 10 people each day, as is the norm for that type of space. By 8pm we had seen over 80 people come and feel/see/play in my work. People were excited by it. Art work that makes people feel something.


In the afternoon pop star Miley Cyrus had seen a photo of my new work via someone she knew and had started following me on Instagram and my phone was alight with new followers, something was stirring...
On Sunday the same happened again, phone was ringing on our way in. An unprecedented 160+ people showed up to bask in Your Colour Perception. Gallery people, scientists, families, students, and people of every walk of life traveled from all over the country to see and experience it whilst they still could after seeing pictures of the work on the internet.

Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles

On Sunday evening we (me and my husband) started de-installing, it took just 2 hours for it all to be cleared away - mind you, it was a backbreaking and very intense 2 house. We finished our day by indulging in a take away pizza and chips. Perfect!

Since, the work is starting to pop up all over the internet, on social media and blogs. People are still asking if its open... sadly its not. Miss it, miss out!

As the title suggests, Your Colour Perception belongs to the audience. It is triggered by the viewer. The work needs people to activate it. It came alive!

Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles

Liz West - Your Colour Perception - Solo Exhibition

Equal amount of blue #2 (detail)
112 x 112 cm, hand-cut strips of 300gsm card

Your Colour Perception is Liz West’s largest site-specific installation to date, incorporating all 5000 square feet of Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor. The exhibition will include new work developed in direct response to the space prior. West will react to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art.   

This exhibition is the culmination of West’s ideas and works since being artist-in-residence at Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn on the Cumbrian Cylinders Estate in October 2014. Your Colour Perception includes new light work as well as works-on-paper and drawings.

This presentation of new work will open on Friday 30th January (6-9pm) and remain open on Saturday 31st January and 1st February between 2-8pm, intentionally utilising the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using the enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months will allow the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year.    

Fourth Floor Gallery 

Federation House 

Manchester 

M4 2AH  

Open 2-8pm Saturday and Sunday  

www.liz-west.com 

2014: My Year in Review

As we all try and combat the January blues (again), I find it a useful pick-me-up to reflect on the previous year hoping that it will serve up some interesting revelations.

2014 was a productive year for me; I entered the year being not quite sure what it was going to deliver (the same with any year), but as time passes more and more opportunities raise their head to me.

In January I was trying to focus on my studio practice and hit a massive creative block. I decided that in order to overcome this, I would start a daily project - I nicknamed this 'The Construction Project'. I would make, document and take apart a new idea every day I visited my studio, I would then write about the work on my blogs. This was a hugely useful experience as not only did it get my creative juices flowing again, it also allowed me to practice my writing skills.

Day 22 of my Construction Project

At the end of January I installed my work Vanishing Boundaries in The Studios at MediaCityUK as part of Future Cities and Quays Culture Sculpture Series in collaboration with Mark Devereux Projects. During its residency, I gave an artists talk at Salford University; I love doing talks, maybe its because I enjoy what I do, like talking and am comfortable with an audience (I wanted to be a Spice Girls as a youth and a ballerina or actress as a teen - this explains a lot!).

Vanishing Boundaries at MediaCityUK

In February I traveled to g39 in Cardiff as co-director of Mark Devereux Projects to take part in an In Conversation as part of the WARP programme. This trip was the first of many, in 2014 I saw more new spaces, met more people and visited more new places that ever before, this can not be a bad thing!

In March my proposal for an exhibition at Exeter Pheonix' Gallery 333 was successful and I set about fabricating, packing and instructing a new site-specific work to be shown for the month. It was the first time I have shown work in the South-West, I always enjoy hearing the responses of a new audience. As a result, my work was featured on the cover of the regional magazine Exeter Living. In the meantime I clambered on with my Construction Project, blogging daily.

In April I spent a lot of time in the studio and even more time perfecting my writing skills. I was startling to get better and felt more confident.

May brought some sunshine and also my first public outing for a couple of months; I presented my work for Cornerhouse's Show & Tell event alongside other North-West based practitioners and creatives. It was a fun day, but as always, it went too fast! As well as this, the long-awaited publication featuring my work and written by Jac Scott was released, The Language of Mixed Media Sculpture is an reference book including the work of 28 international artists. Before the Summer kicked off I was also commissioned by Adobe to create a digital artwork to help launch their new version of Creative Cloud.

June and July were a write-off! I indulged myself in a couple of family trips - one of which being my Hen-weekend in Carsingson Village and a week away with my mum in one of my most favourite places in the world: Southwold. My wedding followed in early July and then a honeymoon in Italy. Staying in Limone on Lake Garda and trips to Florence and Verona were culturally and artistically delicious. However, I did manage to slip in one cheeky artistic outing thanks to Turf Projects who commissioned me to make a crazy golf hole for their 9-hole PUTT PUTT #2 extravaganza in Croydon.

Colour Intervals in PUTT PUTT #2

As soon as our flight landed at Manchester airport in August my phone was ringing... I had been commissioned by Eden Arts to make a new work for Kendal Calling music festival in Cumbria as part of their Arts Council England funded Woodland Arts Trail. It was a fantastic opportunity to test a new work in the great outdoors. It rained all weekend, the music was good, the pies were even better and the work survived 4 horrendously wet days and nights. Success?

Beyond Space at Kendal Calling

In August I also took part in Bury International Summer School; a wonderful 5 days were spent getting to know great people. I must say that the food was amazing (thanks to Sue Trehy) and kept all our minds concentrated throughout. I made some wonderful connections which will hopefully lead to some AMAZING projects this year! Please watch this space...

At the end of August and throughout September I helped lead several workshops for LeftCoast in Blackpool. The aim was to share ideas with the great people of Blackpool to illuminate their bikes and dogs for two separate events: Ride The Lights and LumiDogs. I was also commissioned to design and light up loads of bikes for the event in which 10,000 people took to the promenade and ride their bikes underneath the famous Blackpool illuminations. A real spectacle and a privilege to be part of!

In the month I re-made, re-interpreted and installed my Barnaby Festival commission into Sevendale House in Manchester's Northern Quarter. This is still in situe if anyone wants to catch a glimpse before it comes down in March. I also found some time to move studios from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor at Rogue. Phew!

Consumed #2

At the end of September was Rogue Artists' Studios annual Open Studios event, which was a great success this year with more people attending that ever before. I was put in charge with all the marketing for the event as well as taking the job or Social Media officer for the studio group on a continuing basis. I made a new light installation that filled the whole of my space and allowed me to explore my new home. Thank you everyone who came, it was a great weekend. September was a CRAZY month!

Shifting Luminosity at Rogue Open Studios

At the Autumn drew in, so did the opportunity to create more light-works. At the beginning of October I took part in Light Night Leeds, where I created a brand new site-specific installation in Leeds Art Gallery. Thousands upon thousands of visitors came and saw the work, a great event to be part of! In October I also had a piece of writing published in online magazine EDGEcondition vol.3 Art & Architecture, have a read if you haven't already?

Intervals at Leeds Art Gallery

Mid-way through October, I took the opportunity to go on my first artist residency to Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn at the Cylinders Estate in Cumbria. I blogged about my experience every day. It was a tough week as I had, by this point in the year, started to totally pull apart and reassess my practice. The residency acted as a well-timed retreat, where I took time to think, draw plans and read a lot. Thank god I went with friend and fellow-artist Alana Tyson for moral support.

In November I had my work included in Hanover Projects' In The City publication as well as featuring on the cover and inside The University of Texas publication/journal Reunion: The Dallas Review. I am gathering a nice little collection of books that my work has featured in, they all sit there on my shelf, in date order...

The Dallas Review

At the end of November I was asked to write a piece for A-N News about the 30th anniversary of Castlefield Gallery. This really tested my writing skills and was a very useful exercise. More of that please? I also did some filmed with A-N for a new film they are making about their bloggers, all will be revealed soon!

I installed new work at Airspace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent for their In The Window space, this allowed me to create another site-responsive work, this time using cellulose acetate and florescent bulbs. A wonderful opportunity to see the development of my practice and the working-up of fresh ideas in the flesh.

Assaulting the Asphalt at Airspace Gallery

To finish off the year with a bang, I was approached by I-D Magazine and Vice Magazine in New York who were/are making a series of documentaries about obsessed collectors. Me being the Guinness World Record holder for having the Largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia was a perfect subject for one of their films. The filming took place in December and was tiring but fun... not as glamorous as you imagine and involved leather trousers (I will say no more). The mini documentary will be shown in the Spring via online channel Noisey TV.

Me with some of my Spice Girls stage costumes on the I-D shoot

So, there it is! My 2014. It was a good one personally and professionally. Thanks to everyone who made it so brilliant. x

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.

Revisting and renewing old works

On one of my previous blog posts I spoke about how I have used materials from old work to make new work. This week I am still playing with the 6 LED Light Sheets sourced from my old work Repeated Everyday.

In the past couple of days I have been layering coloured acetate's on top of the light sheets to make new light drawings (images here). I have been excited about the results and think that the use of transparencies works well within my practice and within my research into luminosity.

Today I decided to use the notion of reusing elements within old works to use within new experiments. I pulled open my plan-chest draw to find 10's of works on paper that I had made last year as part of my Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Research and Development funding which I was awarded.

There were some works that I never showed as they didn't quite work. They didn't work because the colours were too flat or sordid or there wasn't enough white space around the image; basically the image I had created didn't jump off the page, like the successful ones did.

I felt this was a shame, but didn't bin them. I don't keep everything, but I kept these sheets. There was elements within them that I liked, but they weren't 100%. Now I know why...

They totally lacked luminous colour! 

I was attempting to use bright hues, but the colours didn't sing. 

One by one, I laid the works on paper onto my LED light sheets and photographed them. I felt a sense of excitement when a few of them started taking on a new lease of life. The light source offered the colours a voice: they were singing!

The colours were at last, vivid in their hue, saturate and glowing; they has become luminous. Of course not all pieces did this; especially the ones where I had applied colour on top of black or collage. The blackness blocked any saturation the colour could muster altogether.

In some of the more successful ones, shown below, the use of the black separates the colour, as a line in a drawing or a wall within a space. I believe that this is how these works should be shown. I feel they are finished. 

Such a simple change makes all the difference. Lifting them from out of my draws, out of their dullness, and into becoming possibilities. I see all my works on paper as possibilities: potential for how they could be taken into three dimensions and how they might one day occupy space.

Visual Research: Using my iPhone for Documentation

I have been continuing my experiments with coloured theatre gels and the LED light sheets I recovered from an old work earlier last week. I have been mainly just playing in my studio; arranging then rearranging the coloured acetate filters onto the LED light sheets, both as they come as by cutting them into my desired shapes. 

This playful approach very much reminds me of the Construction Project that I set myself earlier in the year; making, documenting and taking apart whatever work I made. I have been using my iphone as a way of documenting my stream of ideas very quickly. I do not want the photographs of the ideas to be polished, as the ideas themselves aren't yet; they are still developing.  

Visual research.

As I try and bring reading back into my practice as a method of learning, I have also tried researching my concerns through doing and making; I find a combination of both suits me well (an obvious thing to say and do, but I'm still learning). 

In the past, I have felt unable to be as playful, thinking that everything I made had to be polished and therefore a finished work. I was wrong. This method of practice has proved unhealthy as I found myself churning out commissions without allowing myself time to develop as an artist.

This set of images shows how I have used the coloured gel filters in three dimensions rather than laying them flat over the light sheets, laminating them or overlaying them on top of each other to create different levels of saturation within the colour scale. 

I have still managed to achieve the increasing saturation through the building of layers, but with these images, I have thought more about how I could create this within three dimensional space. These small acetate experiments are positioned on top of and in front of two of my LED light sheets to make the colour luminescent. 

I envisage these meager tests works to potentially exist within large spaces, maybe in front of opaque windows (natural light turning the colour transparencies luminous) or another light source. I can imagine them scaled up to mammoth proportions, as to impact on a space. Giving the viewer a chance to stand amongst the sculptures, becoming part of the coloured layers. Or allowing a viewer to gaze at the intertwining layers that create stronger colour saturation as the scrolls roll tighter. Another thought: Placing them on a LED light sheet shelf (keeping with the small scale) to allow people to come up, close and personal.

There is so much potential here. So much to play with...

When I was at The Glasgow School of Art, Ross Sinclair gave a lecture about the importance of documenting everything you did. He was right. Whatever I decide to do, at least I have snapped away and got them in my iphone photo library -  my digital sketchbook.

 

The benefits of dismantling old work for reuse...

I got back in the studio last week after a busy period including my Merz Barn residency and a number of exciting commissions.

I started the week by dismantling an old piece of work in order to retrieve some custom-made LED Light Sheets that had been fabricated for me over 3 years ago to fit inside a miniature chamber piece commissioned by Manchester's Blank Media Collective  for their Arts Council Funded 'Inside' exhibition.

As some of you already may know, I often use elements from my past works and build them into current pieces. An example of this can be seen with my sticklights that I had commissioned using my Arts Council England funding award last year. I have used them in several works since, included the work that they were initially made for;

Tempo, September 2013, In solo exhibition On Brown & Violet Grounds, Piccadilly Place Manchester

An Additive Mixture #1, October 2013, Bury Light Night

An Additive Mixture #2, November 2013, In group exhibition Synthesis, Victoria Warehouse Manchester

An Additive Mixture #3, March 2014, Solo exhibition, Exeter Phoenix

Beyond Space, August 2014, Commission for Kendal Calling Festival

I know it is cheeky to use and re-use materials, but when there is very little funding available for each project then needs must. With each/any dollop of funding I buy a new stock pile of exciting lighting equipment, this then see's me through a period of creative endeavors.

I'm digressing.

So, I now have a set of 6 LED Light Sheets, which are an incredibly well-made, even light source that I can use within my current practice. They are made up of an LED matrix that stretches across the whole sheet of polished acrylic. They are, in all effect; a small, very flat, spectacularly neat, light box. Even though I have had them in my life for over 3 years, they have served their initial purpose and been hidden away within my old Chamber work and therefore seem like a brand new toy now.

I began by layering sheets of cut theatre gels onto the light-box surface. I started my making multicoloured laminated collages, which then quickly transformed into single or dual coloured overlays. What is interesting about them for me, is how different shades and tones of a colour can be built up using these transparencies. 

These examples are using just two colours in each: yellow and amber, green and pale blue, peach and red. They are laminated in A4 100g pouches and laid over the light source for documentation. More to follow...

Reflecting on my Residency at Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn

My creative reflections were all discussed in my previous blog post. I discovered more than just artistic revelations on my residency.

Now I am back from Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn in Cumbria, I am pushed back into city life. I have had a lovely bath and snuggled in my own bed, however, it is the simplicity of Merz Barn I am missing.

It has been amazing to retreat for a week. 

I loved the fresh air, fresh eggs, the DIY approach. I enjoyed cooking vegetarian food with Alana and our evenings of chat.

I thought pictures would do more justice than words to my time spent at the Merz Barn between 13th - 19th October 2014.

Thank you Ian and Celia xx