In March 2016 Rebecca Byrne and Liz Elton will collaborate on a series of new works during a residency at Sweeney’s Bothy. This week long residency has been made possible by the support from Winsor and Newton.
Rebecca and Liz are painters, both concerned with space in different ways, Rebecca is interested in interiority, and Liz with landscape. In April they will open a group show titled ‘Pool’ which will address painting in the expanded field at the Griffin Gallery in London. The show will be constructed as an ‘immersive experience of works’ with the intention of providing a sense of walking through a constructed landscape so that vistas, glimpses of works will be presented as the viewer progresses through the show.
Rebecca has a painting and drawing practice that revolves around man made structures and the externalisation of an interior space; her interest lies in the unique characteristics of spaces that people inhabit and animate, contrasted with traces left in forgotten buildings. Painting with dissolving, gestural marks, the often eerie interiors in her paintings resonate with narrative and uncertainty.
Liz works in the expanded field of painting, investigating the effects of exposure to the elements as her work exits the studio environment and mixes with the landscape. Places that she selects to make work tend to be subject to change, for example; the edge of the sea, a beach backed by shifting sand dunes covering a buried village, an area of urban change. She is interested in a state of fragility / potential that emerges in documentation as the work becomes damaged and broken.
Rebecca Byrne www.rebeccabyrne.com
Liz Elton www.lizelton.com
The artists collaborative curatorial practice reflects the diversity of their art practices, having worked on a number of shows about the diversity of and possibilities in contemporary painting; this supported residency will provide them with a unique opportunity to make work together on this project.
The artists will use their time on Eigg to refine the curatorial concerns for ‘Pool’, considering how features of the landscape might be reflected in the structure of the show. They will also make new site specific works on the island, referencing the natural formations in the landscape and using found materials for drawings in addition to those provided by Winsor and Newton. Considering their walking, drawing and documenting as mapping, their time on the island will result in a collection of works that aim to communicate their experience of getting to know the landscape, its remoteness and exposure to the elements. Given the contrasting concerns of their individual practices this documentation is expected to range from a sense of the open skies and broad horizons to the isolation and seclusion of the bothy itself.