Elizabeth Stewart uses old family photographs as the starting point for her work. She reimagines and places her subjects into a new orbit, with the intention of setting them free from a frozen moment in time and space. Transcending the personal and sidestepping nostalgia, she creates a new narrative and messes with time.
Initially, along with photographs, she uses painting, drawing and collage which is manufactured into large scale, digitally woven fabric. This is then cut and reassembled using hand stitched appliqué. Stewart explains that she finds this use of new technology, combined with traditional techniques, compelling especially within a contemporary art context.
Stewart moved to the UK from the USA in 1983. She is an art graduate of The Ohio State University, where she mostly worked with performance and video. This was followed by post-graduate study in Arts Management at the University of Akron, with an interest in alternative artist spaces. By way of a USA/UK educational work exchange programme, she moved to Cambridge where she managed a gallery, before settling in Scotland in 1987.
In the year 2017, she was selected as a Professional Member of Visual Arts Scotland and has been exhibiting at their annual show since 2014, as well as in groups shows with Black Cube Collective, Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh's Art and Design Studies.
