Liz West (b.1985) is a British artist known for her wide-ranging works, from the intimate to the monumental. Using a variety of materials and exploring the use of light, she blurs the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, design and painting to create works that are both playful and immersive.

West creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. 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. West's investigation into the relationship between colour and light is often realised through an engagement between materiality and a given site. 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.

West has been commissioned worldwide by institutions and organisations including Natural History Museum, London Design Festival, Paris Fashion Week, Milan Design Week, National Trust, National Science and Media Museum, Dubai Design Week, Natural England, Salford University, Fortnum & Mason and Bristol Biennial. West’s work has been included in exhibitions at St Albans Museum + Gallery, Chester Cathedral, Compton Verney, Musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris, Kraftwerk Berlin, Tripostal Lille and Bangalore International Centre.

Presence

Site-specific installation (metal, dichroic vinyl and polycarbonate)
1500cm (L) x 140 (W) x 300cm (H)
2021

Presence is a large-scale, site-specific commission by Liz West situated in grade II* listed Christ Church in Macclesfield. Presence transforms the space taking the form of a tunnel, created from hundreds of iridescent dichroic panels creating a kaleidoscopic artery down the centre of the church.

The tunnel is made up of 450 squares covered in the colour transmitting dichroic film, which is open at one end to allow visitors to walk in it and become immersed in the work. One side of the tunnel features cool colours ranging from purples through to greens and blues and on the other they will be warm corals, pinks and yellows. The reflective and refractive nature of the material projects coloured light across the entire space, helping to reveal parts of the architecture that may otherwise be missed.

Photography © Liz West and Travelling Simon

Hymn to the Big Wheel

Installation (steel, PVC vinyl and polycarbonate)
480cm (L) x 480 (W) x 300cm (H)
2021

Hymn to the Big Wheel is an immersive sculptural work exploring the illusion and physicality of colour and natural light in space. Consisting of a multi-coloured octagon nestled within a larger octagonal shape, this work encourages the viewer to reposition and align themselves to differing colour-ways to see a changing scope of colours mixing before their eyes.

Constructed using transparent coloured sheets, the work prompts the playful movement of visitors to explore the work in context with their surroundings. This saturate installation is an energising beacon of colour that radiates across the space it inhabits, creating an intriguing interplay of coloured shadows for people to discover. The viewer becomes performer within the work as they move around the inside and outside of the structure to explore the changing optics and colour-ways mixing within the installation. The jewel-like colours create diverse mixes and blends when viewed from different angles from around the installation, as well as producing a sundial effect by casting multi-coloured shadows on the asphalt.

Hymn to the Big Wheel was originally commissioned by Canary Wharf Group for Summer Lights 2021 and shown at Ushaw Historic House & Gardens for Lumiere Durham 2021. □

Article Credits

Photography © Sean Pollock Photography + Matthew Andrews

Website: www.liz-west.com

Instagram: @lizweststudio

Twitter: @LizWestStudio

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