Liz Douglas

Liz Douglas is an artist working in the Scottish Borders and based at WASP studios. She studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art, and came into our college last week to show us her work. She is a mixed media artist and her work is heavily research based and is inspired by a situation, place or space. 

She showed us some of her works, and the processes she uses. She said something that really resented in me, she said "If you take it out of your control, you can do something really different". I liked this because letting things out of my control is something i really struggle with.

I really liked a few of her works, but this one i thought was really interesting

Ettrick-Series---willowlines-slow-thaw-1.5mx1.5m-mm-on-canvas-large

She told us her work reflects the research she dose. She uses involves collaborating with scientists and environmentalists which give her a better understanding of nature,I also like that she investigates microscopic elements using a scanning electron microscope on plants, tree's and plant pollen material.
This work above, Slow Thaw, was inspired by her research at the Etrrick Marshes. I love all the layers to it and the amount of depth in it. 

Another series of her work i really liked was her work with the Flax plant.

She looked to the flax plant as a subject, and the way it was used as a source material for making coarse linen. It was used for making sails in the shipping trade. 

She spoke about how in this series the paper itself is the working surface which marks and lines are drawn, then printed and laser - cut. 

I thought these were really visually interesting, and i loved the research in them. Over all a very interesting talk and i got to learn a lot about different materials and processes. 

http://www.lizdouglas.co.uk/index.htm