Liz West
Multidisciplinary artist
Liz West’s work navigates what colours can offer her, across blues, greens, yellows, reds, oranges, and purples. Growing up in South Yorkshire in the 1980s, West states that she “learned colour before she could read”. Her creative path started seated at her own little desk in her mother’s painting studio. She then decided to pursue her fine art education at Leeds Arts University and graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2007. In Scotland, she started exploring the possibilities of site-specific installations. Hypersensitive to her surroundings, West started working by being guided by her senses and haptic interactions with the world. At that time, she also began collecting objects based purely on their colour. Inspired by 1990s pop culture, West operates within the vibrant colour palette and monumental scales of mass media and popular entertainment. Today, the ways in which she relates with her environment involve using visual, auditory and kinesthetic-tactile pathways.
Now based in Manchester, her instinctive pull to certain colours developed into a methodological approach. Always using ready-made colours, West edits them tightly to make her colour prismatic works. Led by a wild and bright imagination, shapes and forms are nevertheless contained in geometric forms.
Her architectural drawings are the first translation of her ideas which then become collaborations with engineers, architects, and fabricators, to find the best materials and best structures. With mirrors, acrylic, polycarbonate or prisms, she sublimates her colourful forms resulting in a spectrum of both natural and artificial lights. West’s works are site-specific, site-responsive, and site conditional but always perform for our perceptions and sensations. The artist has been associated with numerous major institutions, exhibitions, installations, and projects throughout her career, including Tate Britain, the National Media Museum, the Natural History Museum, and her participation in the Lumiere London festival. She has created monumental size public art sculptures, such as the Hundreds and Thousands installation for Greenwich Peninsula, which 700 metres of the walkway’s glass balustrades, creating a ribbon of undulating colour.
Led by the idea that we need dynamic colours in grey cities, her work creates an environment that people can both observe and experience , perceive, experience and walk into. A public offering of her appreciation of life’s most simple and beautiful elements. With light and colour, West filters daily urban life into great moments of delight and wonder.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021
‘Hymn to the Big Wheel (Lumiere)’, Ushaw Historic House & Gardens, Durham, UK.
‘Presence’, Christ Church (Barnaby Festival), Macclesfield, UK.
2020
‘In Physical Reality’, Hyvinkää Art Museum, Finland.
‘Through No.3’, Duke of York Square (Kensington + Chelsea Art Week), London, UK.
‘Colour-ways: Light works by Liz West’, The Wilson, Cheltenham, UK.
2019
‘Our Colour Reflection’, Bangalore International Centre (Bengaluru By Design), Bangalore, India.
‘Dans la Lumière’, Beaulieu-en-Rouergue Abbey, France.
‘Live Colour’, Clerkenwell Design Week, London, UK.
‘Aglow’, Piazza Belgioioso, Milan, Italy.
‘Our Colour Reflection’, St Albans Museum + Gallery, St Albans, UK.
2018
‘Colour Field’, The Civic, Barnsley, UK.
‘Aglow’, Dubai Design District, Dubai, UAE.
‘Aglow’, Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris, France.
‘Our Colour Reflection’, Chester Cathedral, Chester, UK.
2016
‘Autumn Lights’, Little Moreton Hall, National Trust, Cheshire, UK.
‘Our Colour’, Pithay Studios, Bristol Biennial, Bristol, UK.
‘Solstice Ritual’, Penarth Pier Pavilion, Penarth, UK.
‘Our Colour Reflection’, 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe; St. Marks Church London and Broadgate London, UK.
2015
‘Zenith Blue + Primary Red’, ARCADECARDIFF, Cardiff, UK.
‘The Light Room – Your Colour Perception’, The Willis Museum, Basingstoke, uk.
‘Through’, &model, Leeds, UK.
‘Your Colour Perception’, Federation House, Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces, Manchester, UK.
2013
‘On Brown & Violet Grounds’, Piccadilly Place/Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester, UK.
2012
‘Chroma’, BLANKSPACE Gallery, Manchester, UK.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021
‘Colors’, Tripostal, Lille, France.
2020
‘The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition’, Online.
2019
‘Luce’, Daniel Benjamin Gallery, London, UK.
‘Huetopia’, Noho Studios, London, UK.
‘Abstract Allies’, Zuleika Gallery, London, UK.
‘Colour Snap’, Art and Design Gallery, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
2017
‘Perspective Playground’, Kraftwerk, Berlin, Germany.
‘Seurat to Riley: The Art of Perception’, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK.
‘Drawing for Sculpture’, 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, UK.
‘Winter Lights Festival’, Canary Wharf, London, UK.
2016
‘Colour Wheel’, Vernon Street Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK.
Aesthetica Art Prize, York St Mary’s, York, UK.
Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award Exhibition, Royal British Society of Sculptors, London, UK.
2015
‘Light Fantastic’, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK.
‘Unnatural Pleasures’, Radiant Gallery, Plymouth, UK.
2013
‘Synthesis’, Victoria Warehouse Hotel (part of Manchester Science Festival), Manchester, UK.
‘Four’, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK.
2012
World Event Young Artists, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, UK.
‘Still Here’, Untitled BCN, Barcelona, Spain.
2011
‘The Tomorrow People’, Elevator Gallery, London, UK.
‘At Play 3’, South Hill Park, Bracknell, UK.
‘Colour, Beldam Gallery’, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK.
The Title Art Prize, Manchester, UK (shortlisted).
Woolgather Art Prize, Leeds, UK (shortlisted).
2010
‘Expectations’, The Invisible Dog, New York, US.
Deptford X, Core Gallery, London, UK.
Collagerie, Stew Gallery, Norwich, UK.
Celeste International Art Prize, New York, US.
Northern Futures Awards, Barnsley (winner People’s Choice Award), UK.
The National Open Art Competition, Chichester, UK.
Selected
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