BIOGRAPHY
Elizabeth Briel is an artist and travel-writer with an Asian focus. She has recently illustrated her first book, H is for Hong Kong, photographed her second, Lost & Found Hong Kong and is writing another about her quest through Thailand, Laos & Vietnam in search of the perfect paper.
Her checkered history began in California with an ex-nun and Catholic professor for parents, and she has since been a sculpture apprentice in Tuscany; founded a community gallery in Hong Kong; run a solo charity project teaching photography to kids in Cambodia while working as a radio DJ; created a DIY study-abroad program in France; recruited artists for a show in a decrepit legwarmer factory for the first Liverpool Bienniale Fringe; and painted faux marble on pillars of the Venetian Macau.
Currently she is based in both Sydney and Asia, and will be in North America during Fall 2010. Send her a message if you're interested in her work, or would like her to speak at your bookstore / organization / university. To stay in touch just sign up for her mailing list or add her on Twitter.
Statement
My work goes beyond nostalgia, though I use old-fashioned techniques for making my images. I explore the concept of place: the unique intersections, influences and hybrids of divergent cultures; and the forgotten traces that humanity leaves in its wake, whether underfoot or in a landscape. Glimpses of villages from a speeding train car, high-rises towering above a careening taxi, or windows & doors leading from a dark to a lit world – these images are burnt onto the brain during fast-paced modern travel. I recreate these instant impressions in my blueprints.
