Approved: 16.08.2006

Lizzie Hughes

Artist, Film-maker, Lecturer / academic

Approved: 16.08.2006
 
 

Artist Statement

 

Lizzie Hughes makes meticulously detailed works that are often produced following long periods of obsessive research. Her approach to collecting and then structuring data has allowed her to remotely explore distant landscapes and briefly enter the private worlds of others.

To this end, she has made an audio portrait of The Empire State building by telephoning and speaking to office workers on each of its eighty floors; an electronic map that shows the graphic outlines of over thirty nine thousand swimming pools located in the city of Las Vegas and 4,007 Horizons a video work that transforms generic seaside snapshots into a dazzling journey around the globe.

Not confined to digital media, Hughes has worked with text, performance, found objects and during a recent residency at The William Morris Gallery hand forged steel. For the exhibition Revolver II at Matt’s Gallery in London over one afternoon the public contributed to a complete reading of Gertrude Stein’s epic novel The Making of Americans.  The 1,000 page book was fragmented into short passages that were read concurrently. Individuals absorbed with their own pages contributed to a collective soundscape.

Her most recent work, The Weather in Paris in 1909, is a collection of over three hundred picture postcards all sent from Paris in the year 1909. The cards are unified by their handwritten messages that refer to the state of the weather at the time of writing. The consistent notes about sunshine, wind, rain and snow are interspersed with fragments of other people’s lives from which we can infer a plethora of private narratives.

 

 

 

 

CV & Education

EDUCATION

2000 - 2002       Slade School of Fine Art, University College London MFA Fine Art – Sculpture

1993 – 1997      Slade School of Fine Art, University College London BA (Hon) Fine Art – Sculpture

1991 – 1992      Coleg Menai, Bangor, Gwynedd Foundation in Art and Design

RESIDENCIES

2013               

The William Morris Gallery, London, UK

2011               

Escalator Retreat– Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK

2005-2010       

ACME Fire Station Residency, London, UK

2005               

Vent Live Art Residency – OVADA, Oxford, UK

AWARDS

2000               

The Mostyn Open prize

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND SCREENINGS

2014

Revolver II - Matt's Gallery, London

Ghost of a Ghost - The William Morris Gallery, London

2013   

Film in Space (Anthology) – Camden Arts Centre, London     

2012   

Being Boring  –  Space Studios, London

The Present Is a Point Just Passed – The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich  University, London (exhibited in and curated the exhibition)

Wysing Arts Centre Open Weekend – Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK -commissioned work

2011   

Digitalis - Animate Projects, commissioned work premiered at the BFI London

Concrete Poetry – Hayward Gallery, London

2010   

Lizzie Hughes, Video Works – Broadway Media Centre, Nottingham

Preparing the Ground – ACA Dovetail, Newcastle

Present Technology – Kingston University, London

2009   

Elsewhere III – Atelier Marcel Dinahet, Rennes, France

A Very Loud Silence – Aquaspace Gallery, Atlanta, USA

Stations – The String Room Gallery, Aurora, New York

Ailleurs II – Five Years, London

Transfixed Motion/Transitory Still - Sheffield Institute of Art and Design, Sheffield

195 Miles – PSL, Leeds (in collaboration with The Whitechapel Gallery

2008   

Slow Glass – Lisa Cooley, New York

If You Build It They Will Come – G39, Cardiff

Transhift08 – A1 LabArts, Knoxville, Tennessee

Real Life – Portman Gallery, London

The Whole World – www.tank.tv and Caszuidas Screen, Amsterdam

Planchette – Nettie Horn, London

2007   

VAD Festival Internacional de Video i Arts Digitals – Centre Cultural la Mercè, Girona, Spain (Honorary mention)

Do Billboards Dream of Electric Screens? –outdoor screening in Melbourne,             Australia and (and tour)

Lighthouse – Old Truman Brewery, London

2006    

B-Sides (New Media Scotland) – outdoor screening in Oklahoma (and tour)

Arcade – Westbourne Studios, London

>Over – G39, Cardiff

2005   

Rub Out The Word – d.u.m.b.o. arts centre, New York

Peculiar Encounters  – E1 Arts Space, London

Vent - OVADA, Oxford

Incantations  – South Preservation Convent, Cork, Southern Ireland

2004   

Pilot:1 – Old Limehouse Town Hall, London

East End Academy – Whitechapel Gallery, London  - commissioned work

For the Time Being – Victoria Baths, Manchester – commissioned work

2003   

Ailleurs/Elsewhere – Museum of Installation, London

ArtSheffield03 – Workstation, Sheffield

Hubbub – Globe Hub, Newcastle

2002   

A Measure of Reality – Kettle’s Yard, Cambridg

Toys II – Kagan Martos, New York

2001    

New Contemporaries 2001 – Camden Arts Centre and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art

2000   

Mostyn Open 11 – Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno