Elizabeth Barick Fall
MSU Union Art Gallery
October 28-December 7 | Reception Tuesday, October 29, 5-8PM
As a mixed media assemblage artist, much of my work incorporates my photos with various cast-off objects and other collected materials. Attetion to detail, craftsmanship, relationship between the materials, content, and deliberate consideration of every element is found in my pieces. I contemplate and purposefully utlize the context, inspiration and intrinsic meaning within the materials I use. The content of my work reflects the intersection/interaction/effect of humankind’s experiential interface with the various environments in which we live, as well as how those places inhabit and affect us. Nature, the landscape, domestic life, and architecture permeate my imagery and materials. Themes I draw from include a deep observation/meditation of nature, culture, human-made environmental impact, growth/decay, themes of the female experience, nostalgia, memory, and documenting the passage of time. My work tells a layered story, combining old materials with contemporary content.
This show is called PART of the MATTER, because like my work, it can be interpreted in many ways and is nuanced with multiple layers. This work is made of parts: parts of photos, parts of found objects, parts of stories; parts of my perspective about some current cultural topics and other various thoughts that I ruminate on. These are parts of things that have significance or importance, so they matter, at least to me. Or they address the question of what’s wrong, what are you feeling, “What is the matter?” And, this work, these assemblages, are made of matter; materials which have mass and take up space. They are, in and of themselves, part of the matter.
Liz Barick Fall works in photography, mixed media assemblage and installation, utlizing her extensive collection of materials and photographs. A lifelong resident of Michigan, Liz works and lives in Ann Arbor. She holds a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She taught Metalwork and Jewelry Design at The University of Michigan and Adrian College, and also 2D and 3D Design at Washtenaw Community College. She launched and ran her own line of jewelry and home and garden accessories businesses. In addition to practicing and exhibitng her work, she is the founder and director of trustArt studios and Barickuda Gallery, an artists’ workspace and gallery in Ann Arbor, which she founded in 2012 to develop opportunities for creative collaboration in her community. Inspired by the intent observation of her environment and the objects within it, and guided by the lived experience of contemporary social challenges, she explores themes of nature, loss, nostalgia, memory, growth/decay, climate change and patriarchal oppression. Her work has been shown in numerous group, invitational and solo shows regionally and nationally. She has been featured in Create! Magazine, I Like Your Work Magazine, Women United Art Magazine, Arts to Hearts Creative Process book, and her work can be found in private collections in the US and Europe.
