Elizabeth 'Giz' James

Elizabeth (Giz) James has been drawing professionally for 25 years.  She has explored its nuances across several continents through the figure, portraiture, calligraphy, landscape and more recently, vast panoramas of the built environment.

Following the completion of a B.A. Fine Arts (Drawing), at Victoria College, Praharan in 1987 she studied Traditional Chinese Painting for two years at the Zhe Jiang Fine Art Academy in Hangzhou, P.R. China in the 1990’s. In 2009 she completed a Masters in Painting at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village, New York. Elizabeth continues to draw inspiration for her work from the Melbourne skyline, and a life long passion for portraiture and drawing from the figure. She has taught and run life drawing sessions in the community over many years and currently runs sessions at Breslin Gallery, Carnegie and Glen Eira U3A.

“Drawing is my main medium of expression, supported by painting and printmaking. My work is grounded in the connections between people and place, through exploration into Eastern and Western philosophies and styles, gesture and detail, and emotional and perceptual responses. Inclusion rather than specialization has extended and deepened the calibre of my oeuvre. I invite the viewer to enter spaces both known and untravelled, through the use of observation, memory, and imagination. I often rework surfaces of unrelated histories, incorporating collage, found objects and shifting mediums, searching for new ways to combine a sense of human presence within the environment we inhabit.”

Words by: Richard Birmingham

Visit Elizabeth James Web site