Liz McGowan works in conversation with the Norfolk landscape. She explores the meeting points between inner and outer landscapes, harvesting materials such as reeds, mud, seaweed and lichen and employing the processes of wind, wave, and erosion. Liz seeks to make meaning out of the raw materials of our world. Out of this engagement, work emerges that expresses both the detail and pattern of specific habitats and themes of entanglement and the cycles of growth and decay.
Human complicity in the destruction of non-human systems of life
“My work is intuitive, spiritual and deeply personal, based upon a multi-sensual relationship with the material world around me, and with the nonhuman world in particular. “
Liz McGowan’s work increasingly reflects her grief at the destruction of the nonhuman systems of life upon which we depend, often placing materials such as soot from her chimney in direct contact with delicate lichens or seaweeds. She is intensely aware of her – and our collective – complicity in this, however unwitting or unwilling this is. Artistically, Liz expresses this through the use of her hair, once again incorporating it into the fabric of her work. She believes that we cannot separate ourselves from this enmeshed world in which we live.
New meanings and connections
Some of Liz McGowan’s work has involved curating experiences for others that invest particular places with new meanings and connections for them. All of it expresses ideas around the humanity’s immersion in its surroundings and the close and vital interdependencies that exist.
“Conversation and the exchange of ideas and experiences has always been central to the development of my work, and so I welcome this opportunity to be part of a greater creative network where we can support each other to develop our work and reach new audiences. I believe that, in a time of environmental breakdown, art can speak to the heart – and that without this change cannot happen.”
Liz McGowan showed a body of work at GroundWork Gallery’s exhibition Deep Water, in 2022.in
