LIZ PRIESTLEY
Liz Priestley is a predominantly self taught artist. Over 15 years of living in Sydney, Liz engaged in various casual courses via TAFE, Julian Ashton, and Community Colleges. However it was being surrounded by creative friends and mentors who pushed her to start exhibiting, and the subsequent formation of The Australian Heart Collective in 2003, that provided the jumping off point for an art career. In order to focus on a full time practice Liz moved back to the country of her childhood, and is drawing on the environment daily for direction and connection in her art making.
Consistantly exhibiting in both private and public galleries since 2003, Liz has had seven solo shows in Sydney and regional NSW, and over 20 group shows as well. She has also recently been selected for the Changing Face of the Peel, an invitational show to be launched in December at the Tamworth Regional Gallery. Her work has also been acquired for the gallery's permanent collection
Liz was a finalist for the Essential Energy Awards. And her work has been featured in many local publications, as well as interviews with ABC radio. She has also held workshops both privately at her studio and by invitation for local art organisations.
“The earliest of our memories is what fascinates me. I am always striving towards pinpointing that connection between our first impressions of our environment, and its emotional corollary within our future lives. The work is a result of that endeavour. Landscapes articulating a personal reaction to the recollection of that fundamental impact.
Expanding on this, I desire to explore further the connection of “bequeathed” memory. Asking the questions of past generations no longer here, whether we are the product of their emotional experience of landscape and environment. By producing encaustic works, which in themselves are products of layers over time, I aim to pose these same questions to the viewer.
Landscape is our conduit for the spiritual, this has been illustrated across cultures and generations. By using encaustic, I am alternately building and layering, and reducing, carving and scraping out an image. There is a revelation in the work as it progresses, and in its final form. This process is a physical representation of searching those layers of memory. The resulting image is the vehicle in which the viewer will resonate with their own epiphany of those small personal, binding memories.
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