Bio

Liz Nayadley grew up in Marietta, GA. After graduating from The Atlanta College of Art with a B.F.A she moved to NYC and lived in Brooklyn for close to 5 years. She has shown in Atlanta, NYC, Los Angeles, Denver and Scotland. Two books have been published with her work featured on the cover.

This body of work began as a collaborative effort between Liz Nayadley and another artist named Jeremy Spears. They worked under the name of Spears/Nayadley and began collaborating shortly after they met in college. Liz continues with this work dealing with memories of childhood and coming of age. The medium of photography is used only as a starting point to re-shoot and re-crop her family snapshots of growing up in the South. By choosing certain areas of an image she is repositioning herself through the photograph into it's emotional content. Placing emphasis on what she considers to be the most significant aspects. After compiling hundreds of images she begins the second process of placing images next to each other to form narratives and create dynamic shapes by interconnecting lines that join image to image. Her earlier installations of re-photographed, heavily lacquered images sometimes employed up to 30 twenty by thirty-inch prints mounted on hand-made wooden panels. She has since scaled down the number of panels per piece but continues to use the same process of varnishing each image and staining the wood panels. When photographing she pays close attention to the details of the surface of the images and often show scratches, pen marks and tears from their neglect over the years. As a result of this presentation the images become precious objects that closely resemble paintings. The placement of the images relies upon how each image connects to one another aesthetically as well as conceptually. This is where the work transforms from personal into something universal.

She creates new histories and new narratives, for both the audience and herself. Within these dissected images, it is overwhelmingly evident that the individuals framed in the images are very perceptive about themselves as well as their surroundings. They have their moments of security when the can take refuge in something they enjoy. They know who and what makes them feel safe and protected. We see what they see through their eyes or bear witness to their experiences. Memory, both elusive and subjective, encourages the viewer to decipher each group of images for themselves.

In this project she came to recognize that she was exaggerating memories or stretching the truth. In a sense she is using these images to trigger certain thoughts or emotions. She is only showing the audience what she wants them to see thus leading them towards an outcome. The only variable in this outcome is what the viewer decides to relate to the images from their own personal memories. With this conclusion, she has begun to play with the ideas of fears and fantasies.

This body of work deals with typically mundane situations, which are used to trigger the imagination. The idea that something lives outside the frame completes each piece. By combining memories, fears and fantasies she creates a heightened sense of reality. Innocence is either lost or stolen and by acknowledging this she is in a sense reclaiming hers. Emotions play an important roll in this work. Each of the pieces in some shape or other are titled using elements of clichés. The clichés put an emphasis on the universality of the common experience and make a comment on art being just for the elite. These lead the viewer further but still leave an air of uncertainty.

This work enables her to uncover the deep-seated emotions hidden in the loss of innocence experienced by everyone, as they venture into the right of passage from childhood to adulthood.