The Penitent Mother

From an artistic interest spurred through Life Drawing sessions, Liz Gridley’s work centres on her emotional experiences of the human body, internal stresses, and how a painted human subject can affect the emotional state of the viewer.

“I can feel a reaction in my gut when I view an artwork that is enamouring – and it is much more complex than simplistic emotional states, like happiness or sadness. The figures play with gesture and bodily discomfort to complicate the viewer’s role and bring forth questions regarding voyeurism, consent and body confidence.”

Studying at Monash University which included a semester in their Prato, Italy campus in 2008. Gridley’s passion for realist painting emerged and has now developed to include contemporary surfaces. The reflective appeal of aluminium panels allow the viewer to influence the work by changing reflections visible through the transparent paint layers; this exchange of shadows across the paint surface allows the painted figure to occupy the space of the gallery with the viewer, rather than hide in the sealed, imagined ‘window’ of the canvas.

Gridley had her debut solo exhibition ‘Empathy, My Witness’ in 2018 at Off The Kerb Gallery following her Major Prize win at the Graeme Hildebrand Art Prize in 2017. Gridley has been a Finalist in a number of awards including the Cliftons Art Prize, the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Art Prize (USA), fortyfive downstairs Emerging Art Prize, was awarded a commendation by judge Prudence Flint for her piece in the 2019 Rick Amor Self Portrait Prize. Gridley was also a resident of the ‘Growing Pains Initiative’ Artists Residency at Burrinja Gallery in Upwey in 2019, creating oil paintings that spread organically across the gallery walls before demolition.

Gridley is currently working from her studio in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia).