Exhibitions and Residencies

2022 Deep Water – group show at Groundwork Gallery, Kings Lynn

2022 the spirit wraps around me – solo exhibition at Stapleford Granary, near Cambridge

2021 Installation for Celebrate Trees, St Margarets Church, Norwich

2021 Power Up!  Exhibition with the Green Fuse Collective at the Shoe Factory, Norwich

2020 Ecoartspace juried online exhibition “ecoconsciousness”

2020 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale

2018  Force of Nature – solo exhibition at Norwich Cathedral

2017  ArtDotEarth, Dartington – Duo Exhibition

2017  Groundwork Gallery Kings Lynn – group exhibition 

2016 – 21  Contemporary and Country – group exhibitions at Creake Abbey and Houghton Hall

2016  For the love of – commissioned by the National Trust and the Climate Coalition to make a beach installation inspired by sea level rise.

2014 – 15 Reed installation for the Waveney Sculpture Trail

2014 Norwich Castle Open, Inspired by Birds

2012 – 14 Artist in Residence at RSPB Minsmere  

2012   Norwich Castle Open, Vision and Reality

2012  Constellation – installation in Yarmouth Minster

2004 – 12  Bergh Apton Sculpture Trail – outdoor, site specific installations using local natural materials, workshops and demonstrations.

2010 Art of Faith – Curated exhibition at the Norwich Castle Museum

2007 Wood at Wood’s House – site specific leaf installation for King of Hearts Arts Centre, Norwich

2005 Windscape – installation exploring the movement of the wind around Salthouse church tower, grant aided by Arts Council England

2004 Eastern Open – curated exhibition at Kings Lynn Arts Centre

2004 Sculpting Summer – lead artist for a series of temporary, linked site specific installations involving local communities in a journey down the waterways of the Southern Broads to the sea.  Responsible for overall aesthetics, liaising between artists and South Norfolk Council, making my own commissioned work and feeding back to an exit conference.

2003 Crossover – Commission by Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery to make wall hangings inspired by the River Lark and run workshops for secondary school pupils and teachers.  Highly commended in the 2003 Artworks Awards

2002 Paper Works – touring exhibition with Rural Arts East with sculptures, demonstrations and workshops

2000 Rockland Broad – residency at Rockland St Mary, Norfolk, making outdoor site specific environmental sculptures and facilitating the making of sculptures by the community to celebrate Rockland Broad

1999 Seachanges – duo exhibition with John Richter at Kings Lynn Arts Centre

1999 Barrington Farm – residency and solo exhibition at centre for adults with disabilities

1996 Hebden Bridge Sculpture Trail

1995 Open Air Sculpture – installation of water sculpture at Wysing Arts, Cambridge

1993  The Shifting Form – solo exhibition at Kings Lynn Arts Centre inspired by Welney Wildfowl and Wetlands Reserve

1992 Moments of Growth – solo exhibition at the King of Hearts Arts Centre and linked site specific sculpture at How Hill Nature Reserve

Collaborations

2022 The Iron Reef

Organising and running community engagement programme at Reedham Ferry for design studio Maetherea 

Cley 14  Between the Tidelines
An exploration of the two tidelines at Cley-next-the-Sea, the current one and the Medieval one that would have been half to a mile inland.  A collaboration with Jane Frost for an exhibition curated by Polly Binns and Rod Bugg.  

The Crooked Rose 2013
Five artists in conversation for Norfolk Open Studios:  Liz McGowan, Kim Turner, Chloe Mandy, Red K Sanderson and Maria Pavledis.  The exchange of ideas and ways of working continues.

Touch Wood 2013
Duo exhibition with Lynda Williams at the Greenhouse, Norwich.  Installation celebrating trees and sustainably sourced wood.

Inside Outside 2012
Outdoor reed installation with Jane Frost for ‘Aisle and Air’, an exhibition curated by Isabel Vasseur at Cley, Norfolk

Salt Trails 2009 – present
Collaboration with Jane Frost, creating work through relationship with place and people, inspired by a desire to be sensitive to the environmental effects of the source, process and use of materials.

Offering multi-sensory conversations with the outside world through guided walks and themed projects.

Mapping the Wind:  ongoing project on the North Norfolk Coast initiating conversations with the wind through walks, themed workshops and wind diaries.  Supported by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and the Poppyland Partnership

Abrasion  2010
Collaboration with Malca Schotten exploring the eroding coastline on the North Norfolk Coast, leading to an exhibition at the King of Hearts Arts Centre, Norwich.

Splinter  2007 – present
A small group of diverse artists working outdoors, exploring ways of combining the actions of fire, water, earth and air.  Creating sculptures that exist briefly as live events and are recorded permanently as digital photographs.

Fire sculptures, beach installations, including Cutting Edge, a 100 metre installation on Happisburgh beach, a photograph of which was part of ‘Material Worlds” in the Forum in Norwich

Britz and McGowan  2001 – 2007
Inspired by the detail and pattern of landscape, making drawings and installations addressing themes of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm and the cyclical processes of death, birth, change and renewal in nature.

Two exhibitions of our work:  a drawing exhibition at Blickling Hall and an exhibition of site specific sculptures, drawings and installations at Salthouse Church.

As part of the regeneration project Cromer Prospect, a commission by Commissions East to make a  temporary site specific installation on Cromer church: a galaxy of starfish projected onto the church tower.

Installations for the BBC’s main entrance in Norwich and for an exhibition at Wingfield Arts in Suffolk.  Two installations for the Norwich Fringe Festival, one of site specific drawings and one of a galaxy of starfish.

A Norfolk Songline  1998 – 2004
A project conceived by McGowan and Hugh Lupton, based upon the Australian Aboriginal idea of walking the land as a way of ‘singing’ it alive with story, song, poetry and image, and using the Peddars Way, a 45 mile Roman road across Norfolk as the songline.  Organised in partnership with Norfolk County Council and funded by National Lottery, European Development and the Highways Agency.

1988 – 2000:  Six site specific temporary sculptures made from local materials on the Peddars Way were made into images that were incorporated into a multi-media performance and book.  Six village schools located near the songline were supported to make contributions to the performance in their village.  Stone carver Tom Perkins was commissioned to make six permanent waymarkers for the Peddars Way incorporating extracts of poetry from the performance.

2004:  A second series of temporary site specific installations on the Peddars Way contributed to two five day guided walks led by McGowan, Lupton, singer Helen Chadwick and the National Trail, and also to ten further performances of ‘A Norfolk Songline’ in East Anglian arts centres.

Education

20 years experience of workshops and residencies for:

• primary and secondary schools, adults and families, adults and families with special needs, gifted and talented and physical disabilities.

• conferences and teacher’s training days

• The Broads Authority, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, the National Trust, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, Norfolk Childrens’ Services, Creative Partnerships, Norfolk Arts Partnership, Vital Communities Cambridge, Norfolk Social Services, the Peddars Way and North Norfolk Coast, North Norfolk Countryside and Parks Service, Norfolk Museums Service, RSPB Minsmere, Holt Festival.

The SAW Trust:  Working in Norfolk schools with scientists from UEA and the John Innes Centre, using their scientific research as inspiration for art.

Creative Partnerships:  Working with Norfolk schools exploring core issues through creative practice.

Vital Communities:  Working with communities in Cambridgeshire as part of research into the impact of long term arts provision on communities.

Artlandish:  Commissioned by Norfolk Childrens Services to create a teachers pack for schools groups visiting the outdoor sculptures at Houghton Hall, Norfolk and run induction days for teachers.

Wheels of Change:  Working with Norfolk Childrens Services and Norfolk Waste Management Services and 7 Norfolk secondary schools to design a series of posters on reducing, reusing and recycling waste for display on the backs of Norfolk’s school buses.

Junk Culture:  Residency at St Joseph’s College, Ipswich, working with four schools to create a series of indoor, site specific paper installations of sculpture and words using materials recycled by the schools.

Earthwords:  Sculpture residency at St Joseph’s College making an outdoor site specific installation and running workshop with local schools to create an outdoor sculpture, poetry and word trail.

PUBLICATIONS

Art of Faith, Exhibition Catalogue 2010

A Norfolk Songline, Hugh Lupton and Liz McGowan, pub.1999 Hickathrift Books ISBN 0 9537692 08

Sea-changes, Liz McGowan and John Richter, pub. 1998 Kings Lynn Arts Centre

A Personal Choice, The Aude Gotto Collection ISBN 0 9518657 5 7

Collections

Aude Gotto

Radio Programmes

2004 Ramblings, BBC Radio 4

Websites

Between the Tidelines  betweenthetidelines.wordpress.com

Minsmere residency   memoriesforminsmere.wordpress.com

Splinter     splinter1.wordpress.com

Social Media

@lizmcgowanart

https://www.facebook.com/lizmcgowanartist