Elizabeth Bessant
Exhibiting at Ad Lib Gallery 14 - 24 March →
Elizabeth Bessant is an award-winning artist who lives and works in southwest London. She started her career as a silkscreen printmaker in the 1980s’ quickly establishing her reputation with exhibitions at the Royal Academy, many UK galleries plus international exhibitions in New York, LA and Paris. Her journey has taken her through 28 years as a couture designer where fashion became her medium of expression dressing society women, couture brides and celebrities. Now she focuses on her individualistic collages. Elizabeth appeared in Sky Arts ‘Landscape Artist of the Year’ in 2022.
Elizabeth’s work includes pop art inspired by luxury brands reflecting her time as a couture fashion designer; retro collages that draw on her experience of growing up in the 1960s’ and women’s fight to break away from the traditional housewife roll, landscape and oceanscape collages with torn paper that are statements on the fleeting beauty of the natural world.
The process to achieve the final pieces is a long journey from the original idea searching through hundreds of magazines from the 1950s’ onwards to find the source material to build a collage of words and images. The collages are then hand painted with wash and paint pens to add colour and details. The most labour-intensive works are those collages that are embellished with thousands of crystals, gold and silver leaf, glitter and metallic paint. The resulting art pieces are colourful, textural and vibrant. In her early career, she specialised in printmaking and exhibitions included: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1982, 1983, 1985; New York Art Expo 1987, 1988, 1989; California Art Expo 1987, 1988, 1989; NEC Birmingham 1988; Atlantis Paper Awards Exhibition 1984 (won best print in show). By 1987 she was already listed in Who’s Who in International Art.
Many accolades followed. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists in 2018. A feature throughout her career is her attention to detail which defined her couture and continues to be a striking feature of her artwork. Elizabeth says: ‘It’s the artist’s role to continually question and influence how people perceive the world.’
View a selection of Elizabeth’s works below ↓
To enquire about any of Elizabeth’s artworks please contact us here