Pacific Breeze II

“My practice starts in landscape painting, wondering how we continue and capturing fragility and impermanence. I’ve been using compostable cornstarch as a ground for some time as it embodies these qualities. It is light, translucent and floats like parachute silk as the air moves around it. It’s made from crops such as corn or potatoes yet is often used to make food waste recycling bags. My work for the John Moores Painting Prize 2018,‘One Hundred Harvests’, used 100 of these bags and referenced research indicating our farming practices may mean our land will only support a further hundred harvests. My range of materials continues to expand. Besides traditional materials such as paint and pigments, I make dyes from food waste and also use food colouring, seeds and other organic materials, embedding references to sustenance and waste in the work. As I have developed my practice it has naturally spilled beyond the studio into the kitchen and garden, and from traditional gallery spaces into gardens, fields and parks.”
 

Liz brings together research and narratives regarding food and land to consider the potential embedded in waste and the recycling of matter. Her large floating paintings are made on compostable food recycling bag material, itself made from crops such as corn or potatoes and used to facilitate the disposal of waste food.  During lockdown she began a series of images of the waste going from her kitchen to compost, referencing still-life painting and Instagram food selfies.  The fans made for Pacific Breeze II are made with offcuts of some of these images that were printed on silk for a previous large work, effectively a composting of leftovers. 

Liz has a BA in Fine Art, Painting from Wimbledon College of Art, and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design.  Residencies include Mark Rothko Memorial Trust Artist in Residence Award (2022 pending), Groundswell Conservation Agriculture Conference (2019), The Florence Trust, Highbury, London (2018) and the Bothy Project on the Isle of Eigg, Small Isles, Scotland (2016). Recent shows include The John Moores Painting Prize, 2020 and 2018; ‘Yellow Archangel’ at Oceans Apart, Salford and General Practice in Lincoln; ‘Flowers of Romance II’, White Conduit Projects; ‘Till’ at The Stone Space, London; ‘Yield’, Liz Elton and Eliza Bennett at 163 Gallery, London.

@liz_elton
www.lizelton.com