Liz Atkin is a visual artist based in London. With a background in theatre and dance, physicality underpins her creative practice. Skin is her primary source for corporeal art. both as metaphorical membrane and physical boundary. Her work centres on a multilayered exploration of the possibilities of marking, extending and transforming the skin so as to question the limits of the body and the potentials for communication across and within the porous textures of light and surfaces. This personal investigation explores body focused repetitive behaviour resulting in a sometimes violent rendering of the body in order to condense it to matter for resculpting.
Liz completed a Masters with Distinction from Laban in 2007. She won The London Paper self-portrait award with the Affordable Art Fair in February 2008. Liz was the only international Artist in Residence on The Genesis Project, Los Angeles California for five weeks that same year. She has exhibited her work at exhibitions in London, such as solo shows at APT Gallery (April 2008), Camden People's Theatre (Oct 2008), as well as group shows including 'What NOW,' a weekend showcase at Siobhan Davies Studios in April 2009, celebrating a new generation of young dance-artists who think and ask questions through movement and the body. Liz exhibited work in a solo show at Blackheath Halls in May 2010.

In April 2010 Liz joined Havelock Walk in South London, a creative community of sculptors, painters, designers, photographers and other visual artists, she contributes to Open Studios throughout the year. She is forging new collaborations with Gary Lambert (dancer/choreographer), Hagit Yakira (choreographer), Lenka H Ryan (photographer), Oliver Warren (film maker) and Dr Simon Park (molecular biologist at University of Surrey).
Most recently, Liz won the British Women Artist's 2010 competition for her work Spun/Shed 2010.

Liz's statement

"I am interested in the availability of the skin to bear inscriptions. Whether it is mortified or glorified, marked or scarred, I employ my skin as both a boundary and point of correlation. My skin is unavoidably personal. It carries permanent marks of what my body has experienced, marks accidentally or consciously made its surface. Skin is a work in progress, it functions as a communicator for past, present and future, time unfolds through the flesh of the body and its appearance is constantly shifting."

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All Images Copyright
© 2008, Liz Atkin.
All rights reserved worldwide.