LISA RISBEC

Lisa Risbec is a visual artist based in West Yorkshire with a background in photography and animation.  Alongside her practice she works as an archive photographer at John Rylands Library and has also worked as a creative facilitator, mentor, curator & researcher. Over the past 10 years, she has worked for organisations such as: Cartwheel Arts, Pool Arts and ARC, facilitating workshops, curating exhibitions, designing courses, interventions and research projects around mental health. In 2021-22, she received an Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice grant for a project exploring the link between archiving and collecting and her drawing and sculptural practice, as well as researching ways of pursuing a sustainable practice while dealing with limitations.

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Her research interests include material culture, archival and collecting practices and, as an artist managing chronic illness, research on accessibility and ways that artists can manage a sustainable practice when dealing with limitations (illness, caring responsibilities etc.) 

My current work sits within the intersection of contemporary drawing, sculpture and research-based practice and is focused on collecting, documenting, and making objects. I’m interested in exploring the way things are put together, the items we keep or discard, the memory or trace of a place/object and how that connects to the present day.

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With a strong sense of line and form, I use photography, collage, assemblage, embroidery, and sculpture to explore the way things are put together, the objects we keep and discard, and the visual memory of a place. I am drawn to shapes, lines and angles in the built environment. I find calm in arranging, collating and documenting. I notice the temporary and collect and arrange traces of history.

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I often explore the topography of a place or the materiality of a collection and attempt to re-tell its recent history through a study of form, line and colour. Sometimes through static sculptural forms, other times through moving image, paper-based work or the written word, always preferring to work quickly and intuitively and using creative writing to process my feelings and wider themes around the work.

 

Exhibitions and projects

2022 'Holding Pattern' exhibition, Imaginary Wines

2021/22 Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice grant - archiving/ collecting/drawing/ sculpture

2020 'Anything could come out of that egg!' Postcards from the Futuro group show, Todmorden TIC

2020 'Something is always far away' 'All True Histories' 'The Sea was my Delight' The Anne Bronte Exhibition, South Square

2019 Group show, 9A Gallery
2019 Co-curator, Your Truth is not My Truth, Pool Arts Exhibition, The Horsfall Manchester

2019 Co-curator, Resilience, Pool Arts exhibition, Manchester

2018 'Good Luck Charm' included in The Art Of Magic group show in The Horse Hospital, London, Robinwood Mill, Todmorden and Analogue Farm, Rossendale

2018 Co-curator, R H Y T H M: the work of Akinyemi Oludele, The Horsfall, Manchester

2018 Curator, Three Chord Zen, Lee Hadfield exhibition, Cass Arts, Manchester
2018 'The Earth Runs Red' included in group show 'Diptych, Triptych and Polyptych' at PS Mirabel, Manchester
2017 'Aquisition Preserve' produced for Islington Mill open studios for Manifest Arts Festival

2017 Picture Stockport exhibition 'Painting the Town' animation

2016 'The Chaos before the Reforming' IMAA group show, Islington Mill

2016 IMPACT conference 'Representing Methodology' group show

2016 'The Earth Runs Red' Doremifasolasido Artist group show

2016 'A Different Kind of Map' window exhibition, Nexus, Manchester

2015 Free for Arts Festival (FFA) group show : Manchester Craft and Design Centre

2015 Islington Mill Art Academy residency final show

2015 IMPACT conference 'Representing Data' group show

 

Residencies and commissions

2017 'Let's Talk: Conversations through Making' as part of 'A day and a Night' IMAA group show/ event

2017 'Painting the Town' Manchester Histories workshops and commissioned animation

2016 ‘Doremifasolasido’ Residency, Florence Arts Centre, Cumbria

2016 IMPACT 'Representing Data' visual art commission

2016 'Our Streets' Animation commissioned by Cartwheel Arts
2015 Islington Mill Art Academy residency: Regents Trading Estate

2015 IMPACT 'Representing Data' visual art commission

 

Talks and workshops

2017 Let's Talk: Conversations through Making as part of A day and a Night IMAA group show
2014-2017 Art for Wellbeing workshops - various

2014 World Mental Health day large scale zine publication

2014 Bookmaking/ Repurposing books workshop

2014 Invention: creating small scale artworks workshop
2012 Liverpool Biennial weekend: The Mobile Art School‏ talk

 

Writing and publications

2016 'The Earth Runs Red' Doremifasolasido Artist publication 

2016 'One Day' Islington Mill Art Academy publication

2016 'A Different Kind of Map: Imprint of a trading estate. Published in Stepz II: Between the Rollerama and The Junkyard

 

Screenings and awards

2008 Winner of Best Music Video category in Roots to Shoots Competition
2008 Top 3 short listed and interviewed for 4mations animation funding
2005-2010 Animation screenings: Cornerhouse, BBC big screen, New Islington Festival, Salford Film Festival,

Huddersfield Literature festival, Manchester literature festival, Bochum international Videofest, Magma film fest Sicily,

Sadho Poetry fest India

 

Education

2017 Screen Printing at The Egg Factory, Hebden Bridge

2012 - 2017 Self- directed education at Islington Mill Art Academy 

2014 First Aid 3 day course 

2011 The Complete Bookbinder – Hotbed press course 

2002 - 2005 Photography with Audio Visual Media BA Hons, UCLAN (2:1)