Lyon & Turnbull | Lizzie Henson
16 May 2024
We are delighted to present our 2023 Graduate Showcase Award winner, Lizzie Henson. As part of the 2023 Graduate Showcase Award, Lizzie spent a week working at the Bothy Project on the beautiful Scottish island of Eigg.
A showcase of Lizzie's work, influenced by her time on Eigg and her degree show, will be exhibited in our Edinburgh saleroom alongside our Contemporary Art and Prints & Multiples auctions from 09 to 13 August 2024.
Lizzie Henson (b.1999) is a recent graduate from Painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 2023, she is now based in York, UK where she was born and grew up.
Through materiality, the physicality of colour, and line, Lizzie Henson creates with a sense of motion and presence. Juxtapositions in scale, weight, and pace provide the viewer with tactile and sensory pieces with an impact. Lizzie confronts the viewer with intangible spaces that question not who you are but where you are through tonality and surface. The fluid nature of her practice means she is not wanting to work towards meeting a resolution but instead capturing movement in something static through the fluidity of ink. Ideas for her work are kept pure and honest by realising those first initial thoughts before letting her mind overcomplicate the composition.
From serene applications of colour to blocked out spaces and dramatic gestures, arresting metaphorical spaces are created with notions of trace and physicality. Definitive rectangles amplifies Lizzie's exploration of control and uncontrol by contrasting neat edges against loose gestures. She achieves different levels of noise through interactions between gradients of colour, size, and their placement. These tensions within Lizzie's practice all comes down to her choices in material, colour, and line.
"My time on Eigg gave me clarity. Since graduating, I hadn’t had the space or energy to connect with my practice. Having a week to do whatever I wanted, away from crowds and noise, was difficult to get my head around. But I wasn’t frozen from the isolation, instead my week was filled with long walks, waving to the cows each time I walked past them, and sitting by the sea listening to the water and the birds swooping by. Lighting fires to cook meals and heat up the water to shower made me feel present and connected to the environment around me. My head felt quiet. This all rubbed off onto how I approached my practice."
Lizzie talks about the impact of her time on Eigg
Visit the exhibition in our historic Edinburgh HQ
Friday 09 August - 11am to 4.30pm
Sunday 11 August - 12noon to 4pm
Monday 12 August - 10am to 4.30pm
Tuesday 13 August - 10am to 12noon
33 Broughton Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3RR