Liz Robertson is a New Zealander now living in the surrounding Calgary area. She loves all things arty, creative, sublime and ridiculous that invokes a feeling, emotion or thought process. Liz has dabbled in art off and on for the past 10 or so years and recently had a career change that has allowed her to explore my artistic side. I find her work daring, bold and intriguing. I love her use of colour and her willing to take risks. In Liz’s own words, let’s learn about what makes her tick:
What is your earliest memory of losing yourself in something artistic?
One of my earliest memories is trying to make a paper mache volcano when I was six or seven years old.
What mediums do you use, and do you have a favourite?
Layering acrylic paint, , ink, charcoal, pastels and in haphazard ways. Also using recycled magazines, photos and fabric to name a few. It’s hard to choose a favourite medium but at the moment I am enjoying exploring acrylic paint and soft pastels.
Tell me about your studio, and how much time you spend in it..
I don’t have a studio but I use two spaces at home. One is the utility space in the basement as the floor is concrete and I am less worried about getting paint on it. The other is a spare room in our house that I spend most of my time fine tuning or working on smaller projects.
What are some items in your studio that you can’t live without?
My late Dad’s credit card that is so covered in paint. I use this to spread paint or inks around initially before moving onto what I want to do next. Also, thick shop towels for morphing paint, rolling it and spreading it around a canvas. And cleaning up messes. Thirdly, a cup that says, “ this is not my paint water” that I have of course, dipped my paint brush into by mistake.
We’ve often heard the idea that you have to be a “suffering artist” to make great art. Do you think this is true? Can we make art from a place of great joy and ease?
I don’t know to be honest. I find with my art there is a process of uncertainness, which is linked to the apprehension of making mistakes. But often the mistakes we make lead to learning and coming up with something even better than imagined. A lot of thought can go into making a piece which makes it a decision process, and sometimes decisions are not easy to make, that’s where the suffering lies (for me at least).
What are the things that challenge you, as an artist?
Putting my work out there is one of my hardest challenges. I am an introvert by nature and I don’t fly my own flag enough.
Being a New Zealander and interested in different mediums, one of my all-time favourites is Ceramicist, Rick Rudd in Whanganui. He has done a lot for the ceramic scene in New Zealand and I am a great admirer of his work.
I also follow the work of Sonny Assu, (Ligwiłda’xw of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations) who is a Contemporary IndigenousInterdisciplinary Artist. He delivers a clever and powerful visual rhetoric using the Kwakwaka’wakw iconography and a form of digital tagging on past popular Canadian colonial art with the intent to change the colonial “gaze”. His art work is clever and punchy.
Do you have any stretch goals for your art? Or, what would you like to do next?
I am in my second year as a mature student at Alberta University of the Arts. I would really like to expand my knowledge and techniques in mixing of media. Stay tuned…
What is the best advice you have ever received as an artist?
Other artists have told me to “just be yourself”. And if I try to do a style that isn’t my own it never works anyway!
Things you dislike… about art, about creativity.
Having “artist” blocks is part and parcel of creativity. I wish that every idea that I came up with would eventuate into what I imagined but often it doesn’t. However, creativity is an attitude and involves a willingness to respond and adapt, and to trust the process.
Where can we find your work?
I am a bit hard to find at the moment but you might find me as marmitearts on Instagram.
