Elizabeth Kinsella

My practice is made up of a variety strands from which include painting, drawing, bookmaking and extended painting with wool and fabric.  I am interested flatness and a playful questioning of what makes a painting a painting.

There are times in my work when forms need to extend beyond the picture frame and go out into the world. Often these planes are knitted or sewn. The new forms need a place to rest and they find a new home on a trolley or draped over a wheeled frame. There are times when planes are made from paper and these are sewn or cobbled together with tape. Paper forms may often from collages to becoming a book or a large banner. The nature of an artwork changes depending on the material with which it is made and through the stages and the process of making.

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The work I make is abstract and plays with colour, form and patterns which are breaking up or collapsing. The work in each medium uses simple geometric forms, often reversed or  repeated through a piece to build up layers and rhythms.

I love to play with art historical references. Fragments from early Renaissance, Modernism, Cubist and early 20th century domestic scenes may suggest a form, a scrap of fabric from clothing or furniture may give a starting point for a pattern or a colour reference for building a palette for a work. I combine these historical snippets with memories of forms and details of abstract forms or patterns from around the house or ground level, floors pathways, distortions or reflections in puddles or windows and lots of other stuff.  

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In all of my work, making is a slow process, where time flows back and forth as surfaces are built up and multiple layers are added or removed. This movement of time and touch is vital to me, (whether through the wiping back and rebuilding of paint or the layering or repositioning of pieces of a collage or a knitted piece,) each mark and stitch builds on the one that came before.