Artwork: Interdependence—Blue/Green Aggregate 2019
Artist: Elizabeth Coats
Medium: acrylic on linen
Dimensions: 73 x 72cm
Acquisition: An acquisition of the ACT Legislative Assembly Art Advisory Committee, 2021
Asset no: OLA002612
About the Work
Elizabeth Coats’s long-term and ongoing exploration of pigment and colour— furthered by a 2014 residency in the Winsor & Newton London workshop— developed her understanding of the physical properties of pigmentation in relation to perception. The surface of this work reveals an engagement with the materiality of the linen on which the paint sits, often showing a watercolour-like transparency.
The Interdependence series (2019) is the outcome of a relationship with GeoScience Australia, in which a group of artists had access to geological samples as a source of inspiration.
About the Artist
Liz Coats is an abstract painter who has exhibited in solo and group shows since the mid-1970s. Her background and training encompasses a wide variety of influences including her NZ teacher Colin McCahon, archaeology, Zen Buddhism, geometry, Chinese ink on paper, and environmental ecology. She was also involved with the early feminist art movement in Melbourne. Coats works in series that explore enduring questions about colour perception and spatial relations.
Her paintings are held in numerous public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand and internationally, most corporate and university art collections, regional and state galleries.