Lizz Stringfield: Artist

Portable Ground

2011-06-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Framed text reads:

After the ceremony I took my hand.

We climbed into the distributary, which was

rapidly growing with extremefiles and curiosity harborors.

2011-06-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

Installation view of Portable Ground

Framed text reads:

The world is juicy and lush with sensuous apparitions,

one-armed banjo players and former orphans.

2011-06-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

Framed text reads:

Six Lizzes from Arizona

My father never told me, the higher you climb, the colder the climate gets.

He was my Social Studies teacher the year I got my first period.

The year I fell in love with crispy leaves. The year I realized

what makes adults unhappy.

He was

On a rooftop in Cincinnati.

I was mining the sea.

Land animals have salty blood, which proves I am from Ohio.

I was standing on tiptoes, looking for mouthparts, the day the mountain moved.

Portable Ground delves into what is overlooked and what is

absorbed within a family and explores the impact that social,

economic, and religious influences have on interpersonal relationships.

Each familial infrastructure has its own set of values and rituals

that have been passed down, abridged over time and influenced by the

contemporary social climate. I am interested in examining the

infrastructure that places value on certain events, emotions, and

actions, while avoiding others.

Found and fabricated photographs are sliced and reordered, weaving

an allegory which disrupts viewing expectations, stimulating a new

blend of visual, verbal, behavioral and personal associations.

When something is taken out of context or a part is removed, an

anomaly is exposed. By deconstructing my photographs, binding

objects of cultural ephemera and forcing disparate objects to occupy

the same space, I am altering what is exposed and prompting the

viewer to contemplate what remains hidden within their own

familial structure.

2011-06-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

I consider museums and galleries a sacred space - a place for reflection, discovery and transformation. Chiasmus was primarily built on site, in response to the intricacies of the 5th on 6th gallery space. By ritualistically wrapping the institution, I am drawing the viewer’s eye to what is often overlooked. An agave plant extends out of the wrapping, hovering just above the ground and responding to the anthropomorphic photographs on the adjacent wall.

Lockheed Electra

2011-05-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

The installation, Lockheed Electra, is reminiscent of a religious altar and named after Amelia Earhart’s airplane. It weaves personal, historical and cultural significance and combines highly rendered objects with found materials such as model airplane parts, fish teeth from Mexico, and a rock from the Catalina Mountains.

Post Nuclear

2010-09-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

2010-09-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

Post Nuclear

2010-09-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

Internal Macrocosm, External Viscus

2010-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

There is a natural rhythm to life. Humans are a tiny fraction of this natural order, which is often very different than we perceive it to be. In a society based on the power of human reason, the holistic experience of mind and body is vastly devalued. We are taught to compartmentalize events and emotions and to find solace in the neatly packaged interpretations of happenings presented to us. By opening up the dialogue between mind and body, I am giving power to the multiplicity of emotions and events that shape our lives. The complexity of an experience is exciting and unpredictable and I want to capture that energy in my art.

By deconstructing my photographs, I am dissecting the way we perceive and make sense of experiences in life. By “blowing apart” these images and reordering them in a rhythmic, non-linear way, I am bringing attention to the way vision and the mind work together. The order presented blurs the line between internal and external, natural and manufactured. It calls to question our prescribed understanding of ugliness and beauty, the sensual and disgusting, ends and new beginnings. The small but bold photographs create a tension between the expansive but subtle white walls. These anthropomorphic forms- part human, part plant and part animal - challenge the act of seeing.