Homeward Bound or An Exercise in Collecting Beginnings, Lizzie Ridout, published by The British Library, 2007
Introduction
The majority of Lizzie Ridout’s work stems from a desire to discover: a fact, a story, an object, an image, a ritual, a process, a history. These discoveries inform projects that borrow working methods from graphic design, illustration and fine art. She believes that the form of any outcome should be dictated by the theme or idea at the heart of its content. Her work explores how these cultural, historical, visual and textual messages can be effectively re-communicated through new pieces of work.
Re-current subjects in Lizzie’s work relate to:
Absences, voids, black versus white, nothingness;
The unseen, the silent, the forgotten, the lost, and the traces that remain of all of these things;
Museums, collections and archives, memory - both personal and collective;
Objects, the everyday;
And words, glorious word - as representational, abstract, formal and plastic.
Current research
1. Studies in Indirect Communication
A continuing series of drawings, prints and sculptures exploring loaded silences within conversations. These include the series 'The Architecture of Conversation,' a selection of non-speech bubbles and a series examining punctuation entitled ‘Punctuation that does/says what I want it to do/say and not what others want it to do/say’.
The project 'Ways to talk and yet say nothing, or ways to not talk and yet say everything' which brings together the above projects has been awarded a Women's Studio Workshop Book Arts Residency grant in 2011. It is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. WSW is based in Rosendale New York and is the largest publisher of artists' books in the USA. Publications are held in repositories across the States (Indiana University (Bloomington), Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Delaware, Vassar College, Virginia Commonwealth University and Yale University). WSW also has publications held in over 200 other archives worldwide.
The Architecture of Conversation: Excoriate, Lizzie Ridout, 2010
The Architecture of Conversation: Flee, Lizzie Ridout, 2010
2. The Paper Museum
A collection of historical artefacts, images, texts and other source material gathered in museums and archives across the country. Themed around absence, this selection of historical references will be explored through a series of newspaper-style chapters to create a formal recorded collection of source material. These chapters support and aid interpretation of new graphic and object-based work.
Originally created as part of a British Library Creative Research Fellowship, the second edition will take the form of a newspaper printed in a limited edition. The first chapter, Homeward Bound or An Exercise in Collecting Beginnings can be viewed here.
This ongoing practice-based research will be documented on my blog.
Background
Lizzie completed a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design at Bath College before going on to study for a BA(HONS) in Graphic Design at Falmouth College of Art in Cornwall in 1997, for which she received a First Class Honours. In 2002 she graduated from the Royal College of Art, London with a Masters in Communication Art & Design. In February 2007 Lizzie completed the Pearson Creative Research Fellowship at the British Library in London. She is currently based in Cornwall where she continues her own work and is a graphics and illustration lecturer at the University of Plymouth and at University College Falmouth. She works independently and to commission.
Further
To view her portfolio click here.
To view her current research in an online sketchbook click here.