Liz West, a fellow artist, lover of colour, Glasgow School of Art alumni, and my ex-flatmate, talks about how her collection of Spice Girl memorabilia has helped fund her art practice.
Liz West is known for her artworks that use bright
coloured light
Artist
Liz West is gaining a glowing reputation for her colour-drenched light
installations - but her art career might not have taken off if it were
not for her world-record collection of Spice Girls memorabilia. Art and
pop can go hand-in-hand, she explains.
West is taking part in two exhibitions this week - one
featuring her strips of coloured light radiating from the corner of an
old warehouse, which is in the Synthesis exhibition as part of
Manchester Science Festival.
She has a growing reputation as a contemporary artist thanks
to her arrangements of lights in precise, pleasing patterns and her
collections of objects bathed in bright, bold hues.
For the other exhibition, she has lent some of the 5,000
Spice Girls items she has amassed since the age of 11, including branded
clothes, crisp packets and a clock, to an exhibition celebrating 40
years of Virgin Records in London.
As well as being an artist, West holds the
Guinness
World Record for the largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia.
The Spice Girls collection comprises
5,000 items of clothing and merchandise
"The way I see it is that installation art is high culture and
Spice Girls is pop culture," she says. "Although the two hold hands,
they're separate."
When looking to launch her art career, West's Spice Girls
obsession came in useful when she found she could get paid for loaning
her girl-powered pop collection to museums, film crews and events.
"Because I was given that financial boost to start with, my
art practice has been able to roll and roll," she says.
"Now I'm able to fund my art practice through my art. I don't
have to work in Starbucks part-time. A lot of artists do have to work
part-time, and I think that would kill any creativity for me. It really
would."
West was born into the art world - almost literally - almost
born on the floor of the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, she says, when
her mother Jenny was artist in residence there 28 years ago.
A five-day-old West attended the opening of her mother's
exhibition.
West recently staged a solo exhibition
in an empty office unit in Manchester.
When she was seven years old, West remembers putting nail
varnish bottles on a bedroom shelf in line according to their colour. It
is not difficult to spot a link between her love of colour as a child
and the artworks she now creates.
Then when she was 11, the Spice Girls arrived.
"A very impressionable age, I think," she says. "I was
hooked. The colour, the energy, the different personalities. That
appealed - more so probably than the music."
When the Spice Girls' second album came out in 1997, West
decided to collect any and every recording and item of memorabilia she
could get her hands on.
"I'd go to the pound shop and buy bags of things as a 13- or
14-year-old. They brought out the dolls and I went to London to the
Hamleys sale.
"Of course, when eBay appeared when I was 18, I had a student
loan, went a bit mad, and it just continued."
West owns Emma Bunton's 1997 Brit Awards
dress - but not Geri Halliwell's
Influenced by her parents (her father Steve is also an artist),
West attended the prestigious Glasgow School of Art.
"When I was a student, I'd go into the studio all day and
then I'd go into the library in the evening and just bid and bid and bid
[on eBay]," she says. "I'd have a day of art and an evening of Spice."
West says she has spent "tens of thousands" of pounds on her
collection, which also includes outfits from the Brit Awards, the
Spiceworld movie and the jacket Mel B wore to meet Nelson Mandela.
But it does not include the most iconic Spice outfit of them
all - Geri Halliwell's union jack dress from the 1997 Brit Awards. That
was bought by the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas for £41,000.
"That's the holy grail," West says. "And it's in storage.
That's quite upsetting."
Now, West's art career is taking off thanks to her luminous
installations that look like she has dismantled and rearranged a
rainbow.
West has been in exhibitions at
Manchester's Cornerhouse and Blankspace
"Did you see the rainbow the other day over Manchester?" she
says excitedly at the mention of rainbows. "This was a double one and it
was a proper arch. I stopped in the street for about five minutes and
stared at it.
"I thought, forget James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson and all
the artists that I absolutely love - this is true absolute beauty.
There's something in that that I could never create, even if I tried."
West says she is not worried about her Spice Girls obsession
undermining her reputation as an artist.
"It's completely in keeping with my personality," she says.
"And because I've got such a passion for it, I win people over with that
passion. It's not just about T-shirts and dollies.
"As a serious artist, this is my career. I want to be
nominated for the Turner Prize.
"If you look at other artists, there are quite a few that
have quirky collections out there and haven't hidden them. I don't have a
problem with it."
What do other artists say when they find out about the
collection? "They think it's quite funny," West replies.
"You know, it would be really boring if I didn't do anything
else. People tend to think that it's a quirk, and quite a nice one."
For the original article and to watch a video of Liz West on the BBC news, please visit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24655947
Posts
