Liz Blizzard
Liz Blizzard has a national and international reputation as a painter of the Australian landscape - abstracted, imagined, and immediately, stunningly beautiful.
THE JOURNEY
From a hardworking rural childhood with a Goulburn River backyard, Liz went to Shepparton High - which ran Art in matriculation for her and one other student. After that, Melbourne - for SAC (Secondary Art & Craft Teacher) training. Her name was Elizabeth Crawford.
"It's hard to explain how much fun it was going to Prahran (Institute of Technology) in 1964. It was the year the Beatles came to Melbourne - and it felt like everything had changed, literally overnight. Ideas, people, clothes, hair, attitudes - marching against the Vietnam war. Suddenly, so much more was accepted. So much more was possible. We worked really hard at P.I.T. - sculpture, printmaking, painting and drawing. We also studied at RMIT and Melb Uni, all day and all night. Great teachers. It was a fantastic time. Peter and I met there."
Raw talent, support for each other, and hard work established Liz and husband Peter Blizzard in the art world. Together they have produced an astounding range and quantity of work - and 3 children. The young family moved to their bush block in Greendale 40 years ago, where the house, studios, and landscapes they have built there are a testament their long collaborative partnership.
"I have always had my own studio space - somewhere that was mine to work in. Pete being an artist too meant he knew how important that was. We were able to understand each other. We could take financial risks together; we backed each other up as our careers expanded."
With decades of exhibitions and University lecturing behind her, work in private collections in Australia, Japan, Korea, France, Russia, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden and England, Liz's current passion is building her own house. And, as matriarch of the Blizzard clan, she is still the heart of her very talented family.
THE PROCESS
Many of Liz's paintings are journeys. Places as you pass through them; the light that tells you the time of day. In 2000, for an epic 16500 km, Peter drove while Liz sketched and painted - literally capturing the passing scenery as they drove through it. Filling sketchbooks with quick, compelling impressions of the outback landscape as they travelled through the western and northern deserts, plains, and rock country. These sketchbooks continue to inspire work. >From the ideas in them, a host of large scale landscapes have emerged. Her basic materials are oils, acrylics and pastels, often on very large canvases or beautiful paper to portray the sometimes subtle, sometimes spectacular colours of the earth and sky as she renders them.
THE INSPIRATION
The landscape is Liz's biggest inspiration. She generally works in series, exploring an idea thoroughly. Other themes are varied. Portraits are a strong thread throughout her career; fire - a series worked through fighting and surviving the 1983 bushfires which destroyed sheds, workshop and studios, and almost took their house.
Searching for Siberian tigers in Russia; a trip to Tuscany; the view from Mt Blackwood, the way the earth looks from a plane...
All of these experiences have inspired strong emotional responses. What grabs you in Liz's art is the intensity of it. There are some gentle images - but mostly they knock your socks off.
