Biog
Lisa Risbec is a visual artist based in West Yorkshire with a background in photography and animation. Alongside her practice she works as an Imaging Assistant 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. Currently studying MA in Fine Art working with themes of materiality, archival practice, personal histories and collecting.
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.)
Statement
My work is about putting things together, working with found materials and objects; collected, accumulated and combined. It's also about systems of organising and arranging, memory and how objects relate to our emotions and bodies.
Influenced by the archive that I work in, I am interested in the way objects are collected, stored, handled, and categorised - often finding myself performing these actions again and again in my work life. I translate these gestures into ways of making artwork, using the idea of collection and reorganisation as ritual and performance.
During the past two years I have been working with my accumulated archive; retelling stories using techniques such as quilting and embroidery combined with found objects, print, ceramics, performance, moving image, sound and text. Reflecting on how objects are charged and can symbolise loss/grief and how archival systems or gestures could be used as a framework for practice.
Artist CV
Based in West Yorkshire
b. Warrington 1984
Exhibitions and projects
2024 ‘The Organised body’ (MA show) Hanover Building, Preston
2024 ‘The Weight of it all’ Interim Group Show, The Birley, Preston
2023 ‘Permission to Breathe’ What? How? Why? Group show with Bert (Karen Bertonasci), PR1 Gallery, Preston
2023 ‘Everything I Didn't Want' The Cutting Room Exhibition, Leeds Art University
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
2022 - 2024 MA Fine Art, UCLAN
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)
Click here for my facilitation/ community work CV and employment history