Vale Lizzie
It’s with heavy hearts we share that our collective and community has lost some sparkle last week with the passing of our friend and founding member, Lizzie Carruthers. With this message we honour Lizzie, our memories and her art journey.
Lizzie was a rare kind of friend, steady, considered and endlessly thoughtful. The hostess with the most-ess, she was our Chief Party Organiser. Lizzie was funny, she made us laugh, a lot. We shared a sense of humour and a love for the F & C words. She had fabulous fashion sense and knew how to rock a frock. She was as mad as the animals in her paintings were and we loved her for it. She was a straight talker and a fierce champion of us, her fellow artists.
She brought colour into the world, with her humour, style and art. People are drawn to Lizzie’s work. It is the identification of the animal, but it is the underlying story being told that holds the viewer there. It was joy to experience people engaging with Lizzie’s work in the gallery.
Her art career began making strides in the early 2000’s when Lizzie began attending art classes taught by Megan at the Otago Polytech. It was apparent from the beginning that Lizzie had exceptional observational drawing skills. Over the next 10 years Lizzie continued attending workshops and classes, developing her skills and animal portrait painting. Acrylic paints, oils and palette knives opened Lizzie’s work to a whole world of vibrant, luscious colour and texture.
Exhibitions followed, with Lizzie participating in numerous group shows including the Wānaka Art Society exhibitions, the Masonic Lodge, Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery in Alexandra as well as Dunedin. She held her first, free-range solo exhibition in 2014 at Megan’s home gallery. In 2019 Lizzie became part of Hullabaloo Art Space, an artist’s collective in the Cromwell. Now a fully-fledged artist in her own right, Lizzie’s work continued to take flight. Many initial animal paintings as we all know them were small, intense and jewel like. Although small they projected their personalities into a room. Then she went big. There were jokes around “go big or go home”. Not one to stay still, Lizzie started making larger than life paintings, working on doors and making some works so big they had to lean against the wall.
While exhibiting Lizzie still continued to develop her artistic skills, recently delving into print making and tetrapack printing. She opened her own studio and gallery at the farm. Just last year, as you know, alongside us girls, she set up Artē Collective.
Lizzie drew on her farming background for her work, her love of animals, her pets and her familiarity with them bought deep knowledge of their personalities. Through facial expressions, the twist of a head, clothing and a look in the eye Lizzie could create a whole back story. A keen observer of human behaviour too, Lizzie bought both elements into her work creating paintings that reflected back to us the animal nature of humanity and the humanity of animals.
Lizzie was the Queen of the clever title. She used wit, satire and humour to comment on politics and the environment. A memorable exhibition of her’s from 2020 was ‘Hen Party’ A celebration and homage to her mother-in-law who “loved a party, gin, hens and most of all family”, each piece is a tongue-in-cheek pun with titles, Cheryl Crow a well-coiffed hen with an impressive head of hair, standing at her microphone, evidently mid-song. Princess Laya, equally notable for her hair-do, is upright and determined, ready to take on the Dark Side. Victoria Peckham’s runway as she walks with grace and style. And a particular favourite — the rooster, Gregory Peck, a very stylish gentleman with a fabulous suit and a withering stare.
As artists, whether it is in the visual, literary or performing arts, we know the making of work involves research, experimentation, creativity, commitment and hard graft. And Lizzie did all of this. Behind artists there is often support and it this support which enables us to continue working. Thankyou to Phill, Hillary and Fiona for supporting Lizzie and enabling us to have a glimpse of her talent. Every work contains a part of the makers personality, their emotions, their soul or spirit. Those of us fortunate to have Lizzie’s work will always have a connection to her, a touch stone to remind us of her wit, playfulness and creativity.
It has been a privilege and a joy for all of us to be her friend and to be a part of Lizzie’s artistic journey. She leaves a huge hole, our rainbow has lost one of its true colours and our hearts ache for Phill, Hillary, Fiona and family.
Vale Lizzie, we will miss you so much.
With love,
Andi, Briar, Jenny, Megan, Sophie and Sue.
