LIZ LUMLEY-SMITH (aka EM)
Liz (Elizabeth Moya) studied illustration and graphics in Toronto, later working in design, music and advertising studios in London. Disenchantment with the commercial art sector led her in the late 70s to training as an art therapist.
She subsequently practised in the NHS, Social Services and for charities: specialising in mental health with adults and children also with families traumatised by bereavement and life threatening illness.
She has an eclectic approach to her own art making employing a range of mixed media, always wanting to recycle/reuse art works and found objects where possible. She has shown in many group shows and art trails and has been exhibiting with Hybrid since it's outset in 2010.
Since retiring from her art psychotherapy practice and spending more time in her studio Liz continues to reflect on her invaluable A.T. experience and it's ongoing influence on her own art making.
She also works with Amnesty Books, likes nordic walking for it's health properties and being in green spaces, seeing theatre and films with good friends, reading thoughtful books and escaping into novels.
Liz does however worry a lot about the future of our planet especially for our descendants.
Liz (Elizabeth Moya) studied illustration and graphics in Toronto, later working in design, music and advertising studios in London. Disenchantment with the commercial art sector led her in the late 70s to training as an art therapist.
She subsequently practised in the NHS, Social Services and for charities: specialising in mental health with adults and children also with families traumatised by bereavement and life threatening illness.
She has an eclectic approach to her own art making employing a range of mixed media, always wanting to recycle/reuse art works and found objects where possible. She has shown in many group shows and art trails and has been exhibiting with Hybrid since it's outset in 2010.
Since retiring from her art psychotherapy practice and spending more time in her studio Liz continues to reflect on her invaluable A.T. experience and it's ongoing influence on her own art making.
She also works with Amnesty Books, likes nordic walking for it's health properties and being in green spaces, seeing theatre and films with good friends, reading thoughtful books and escaping into novels.
Liz does however worry a lot about the future of our planet especially for our descendants.
Pathways Through Colour
Colour can have a contrasting, emotional impact on us that can be both positive and negative, can clash, repel and attract.
Colour can have a contrasting, emotional impact on us that can be both positive and negative, can clash, repel and attract.
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For our last Hybrid exhibition in September 2023 I made a set of 'artists' books' which explored the feelings that colour evokes and inspires in us. For example:- Red: passion, in love, in anger. Ariadne's red thread, a gift to Theseus to see him safely through the labyrinth, red politics, 'red rag to a bull', life's blood.
While writing this I was minded of our furious planet Earth burning red infernos in the south and drowning grey blue floods in the north. Blue: 'The colour of heaven', can be relaxing, is spiritual, yet we also feel blue, express our melancholy by singing the blues. It is a 'cool' colour but can also feel very cold and unfriendly. Yellow: sunlight, flowers in Spring, brings warmth, suggests hope. Equally Nature's yellows indicate poison, keep away, like adders and wasps. We use yellow in symbols alerting us to extreme danger as in radioactivity. Some of us feel disturbed even maddened by lemony yellows, sickness too is often yellow.
And how is it that a colour such as Black arouses such powerful positive and negative feelings in us? Black velvet, 'the little black dress, kohl-ed eyes are sexy, exciting, black cat passing is good luck in the west but bad luck in the USA . . .or . . . black dog depression, pitch black, without senses, black holes, doom.
Bearing in mind that in different cultures and religions colours have varying significance; like White: meaning purity and innocence in Christianity yet death and mourning in others. Think also of Green: growth, climate change, but also the green eyed monster; think of purple, orange, pink et al.
Method: Intending to continue my recycling theme of reclaiming old work I started this artists' books set by using existing paintings. Soon however I was making the paintings specifically with the colour in mind to convert into a book-object which would show its emotional pathway. I first made an A2 painting on watercolour paper using mixed media which I then folded, cut and glued into a little book and made its cover with the same materials. The books are hybrids, both paintings and books, old looking yet new. The covers have a weathered appearance like agèd tomes within which we hope to find a pathway towards a positive outcome.
The books are fragile, vulnerable, reminding us of our own mortality and, like the ensuing existence of planet Earth, they need to be treated with care to ensure a future.
When the books were completed I made a 'colour library' shelf unit in which to contain and display their individuality: equally showing the flexibility of their primary and secondary relationships.
My thanks to the late Derek Jarman for his emotionally engaging book Chroma and to Kassia St Clair for her book The Secret Lives Of Colour with its vivid narratives through the 'the cultural history of colour'. Thanks also to Victoria Finlay and Philip Ball.
Back painting for Lapis Lazuli, ie ultramarine
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Lapis Lazuli: the book
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Detail from the yellow back painting: radioactivity symbol
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Ariadne's Red Thread: the book
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Back painting for Not Pitch Black, folded, not yet cut
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Not Pitch Black: the book
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'Welsh Graveyard Cottage'
(Exhibited at RWA Friends 2024, Selectors Choice Award) 'Group Portrait' |
2024
This year while being mindful of the need to reduce plastic consumption, as in acrylic paints for example, I have been rediscovering my earlier love of oil pastels and enjoying their texture, flexibility and oiliness. I feel so fortunate to spend time in Cornwall and Pembrokeshire which keeps me connected with the precious green countryside and blue grey seasides which are still relatively unsoiled . |
Timeless Migrants: 2020
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They're All Leaving: 2020
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'Kurios' [papier mache] from her children's book: Kurios outside his world. 2018
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Migration: 2020
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