Biog
Lisa Risbec is a visual artist, based just outside of Manchester, with a background in photography and animation. She is a skilled arts facilitator, curator and researcher, working for organisations such as Cartwheel Arts, ARC and Pool Arts over the past 10 years, facilitating workshops, curating exhibitions and designing courses and interventions in Art for Wellbeing.
Research interests include material culture, creative practice as research and neurodiversity in art. As a neurodiverse artist managing a chronic illness she is interested in uncovering how to bring visibility to struggles with hidden illnesses and adapt art practice to succeed alongside able-bodied artists.
Statement
My current work sits within the intersection of contemporary drawing, sculpture and research-based practice and is focused on collecting, documenting, and making objects.
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.
Sometimes I work in close detail, a composition or found arrangement in the street. Sometimes with a wider viewpoint, a landscape or expanse of sky and I find beauty in unintended arrangements or seemingly random and purely functional choices. I like the way that the natural world is organised and the way that humans can create beauty without realising.
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.
Artist CV
Based in West Yorkshire
b. Warrington 1984
Exhibitions and projects
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)
Click here for my facilitation/ community work CV and employment history