Liz ARCHER

“Not all of us are brave enough to have our bodies tattooed. Today tattooing can arouse different reactions from absolute revulsion to a statement about oneself or some see it as an artform.” Liz Archer 2010

Liz Archer is a local artist with a passion for the traditional Japanese tattoo and Asian art in general. Her latest body of work, Gestured Conversations explores the concept of the tattoo through the trapunto quilted figures which are painted in the narrative myths in the tradition of the Japanese tattoo. But some of these tattoos have a twist - they are no longer part of the body...the body becomes secondary whilst the tattoo escapes the body and explores a life of its own. Dancing with the silhouette figure, in it’s stillness, the tattoo taunts and teases the almost absent body with its animated brilliance. The body respresents the figure as a voyeur of the past or in the reclining figure; a dreaming muse.

There will be a running presentation throughout the opening and exhibition that provides an insight into the background of the work.

Liz Archer is an Australian artist and art teacher. Inspired by a performance she saw of a Chinese opera as a young adolescent she has spent a life time exploring ideas around Asian themes. Her work is a decorative repertoire of historical styles and imagery mainly from the Ming period of China (1368-1644) and the Edo period of Japan (1683-1808). Her visual language is a poetic, contemporary interpretation of Asian symbolism.She has been exhibiting her work throughout Victoria, Australia since 1968.

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