Thisdurational outdoor piece was made for Beacons Icons & Dykons, to accompany a showing of Jarman's Last of England. A poetic, nightmarish journey through a dark landscape of totalitarianism and despair...
DARK, COLD, the faint smell of sulphur in the air.
Her body wrapped in the fluttering flag, regal and proud she stands in the night.
She squeezes the newspaper wrapped chips, another symbol of her land, held aloft in her hand. Ketchup trickles slowly down her arm.
For this Beacons Icons & Dykons at the Arnolfini I imagined an off-stage scenario to accompany a famous scene of Pink Narcissus. The piece tells an imagined narrative of real life underpinning the artifice of the film, weaving gems of truth into the fiction.
I was fascinated by the timescale of the film (it took seven years to make) and the trajectory of the director James Bidgood, who's work has inspired many iconic artists.
This piece contains copycat Iconography, garden tools and some slight nudity.
Ladies and Gentlemen; you are here tonight to witness an Amazing, an Incredible and a Death Defying Feat. She’s a renegade mechanic, an altruistic megalomaniac and The World’s only one- woman-husband and-wife team. With 50% extra Extra, I give you: The mistress of contradiction herself…. Ms Betty Bruiser!
New Ways of Thinking About Ourselves...
Liz Clarke & Company have been commissioned by South Gloucestershire Council to work in three libraries for three years. We are working with people who want to improve their mental wellbeing and people living with dementia, their carers and allies.
The project is driven by my performance practice enabling people to create new performance work through series of workshops. Each year I invite a new artist to work alongside me to create resources and provocations for the library service.
In 2012 I invited women of all ages and backgrounds to take part in a unique two year project working with international artists to create a very special publication. This was to be the last project under the Drastic Productions banner before morphing into Liz Clarke & Company.
The Compendium of Super Heroes and Alter Egos was to be a collaborative process culminating in a graphic novel promoting positive images of women and mental health issues. It became that and so much more…
Losing My Edge was a 10 minute jaunt through performance art history, enacting seminal moments both real & imagined upon the Body. The piece was set to a tongue in cheek rendition of the LCD soundsystem track of the same name, musing on the artist growing older, paying respect to those who have paved the way and worrying about those artists that are younger, better looking and more talented than me. It ended with a live tattoo which is a particularly enduring memory of this piece.
'The Filth Queen of the Transgressive Scene' BBC
I love this title that was bestowed on me by a breakfast show presenter no less!
Filth Queen has shown at the Cube, Duckie, and many cabaret events. First commissioned by Beacons Icons & Dykons as an homage to the ‘Prince of Filth’ John Waters.
