Liz Ferrill
Drought 7, 8 x 8 inches, pochoir on paper.
“I explore under-appreciated objects and spaces - that are often grey in color as well as in meaning.”
Liz Ferrill is an artist living and working in Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Her approach to color is relative and her approach to printmaking is additive. Her work focuses on shape, the depiction of light and shadow, and exploration of mundane spaces through the use of pochoir printing methods and Rubylith screen printing techniques. Liz also makes monochromatic ink wash drawings that she is translating into Rubylith screen prints. She is also exploring screenprinting and pochoir through printing onto window screens.
Her current focus is a series that is centered on her experience in the hospital while giving birth to her second child. It is meant to be a meditative and observational depiction of the loneliness of a hospital stay. The scenes are devoid of figures, and the imagery is easily recognizable and applicable to the common experience of being in that kind of institutionalized setting.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
Color allows my work to convey the coldness of a hospital floor, the raw blast of arid heat on the side of a building saturated in desert sunlight, and the connection of one flat shape to another to suddenly shift into space.
How does color represent or support the mind space of your work?
Greys are the most pleasurable colors for me to mix because they represent a peripheral experience, rather than a focal one. When surrounding a pop of intense hue, grey can depict a rich depth. I explore under-appreciated objects and spaces - that are often grey in color as well as in meaning.
Drought 8, 8 x 8 inches, pochoir on paper.
Drought 3, 8 x 8 inches, pochoir on paper.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
I've never been big on the color wheel, but maybe that's because it isn't an aesthetically pleasing object. I judge the effectiveness of a color by how well it either integrates with, or pushes against, the color next to it. I don't have a favorite color, but I can tell you that my favorite two colors together are grey and yellow.
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
I corral boundless color into a matrix that gives it order and relevance. The pochoir process literally harnesses color within a stencil and allows for it to be saturated, dense and hard-edged.
Drought 1, 8 x 8 inches, pochoir on paper.