New series of prints plus metal and mixed media sculpture by LIZ BOAST

This is an exhibition of prints and sculpture with a narrative theme. They tell tales of everyday life, its strangeness and its normality, its comedy and tragedy.

Liz Boast has had a studio at Parndon Mill since 1999. She experiments with different methods of working trying to find the best way to get the message across; ideas being more important than the process itself and not wanting to limit herself with labels such as ‘Painter’ or ‘Sculptor’.

Liz’s most recent work consists of series of narrative etchings. She has always liked a good tale and has long been fascinated by fairy stories and fables, myths and legends. She has also been exploring the best medium to use to find her voice and has found it in etching – William Blake’s ‘infernal method’. She is still discovering processes within the discipline and is working with aqua tint, soft and hard grounds and roll ups - where colour is applied directly onto the etched plate before printing.

Narrative space is never filled with a simple replication of the real world, it always involves editing and selection, mediating between life as it happens, the good and the bad. Using images drawn from the world around her she tells her story, with her own symbolism composing personal mythologies. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that she can understand the content of the work, the result of the tension between her conscious and unconscious mind. The series on houses came as a result of moving house and the anxiety that caused. And the dog-headed men are from medieval folk lore, but also have a lot to do with the animus, the male side of the female mind.

Luckily the narrative is a continuum: there will always be stories to tell. Liz is currently working on a series of prints about Santeria, an African–Cuban mix of religions where the religious practices of the Yoruba slaves mixed with the Catholic beliefs of their masters.