Liz Mares

Art has always been about construction for me. Not just in the obvious sense — though yes, there is something deeply satisfying about the physical act of building a piece, whether I'm working with line, layering collage, or dragging oil pastel across paper. I mean construction in a broader sense: the idea that the work figures itself out through the making, not before it. I don't start with a resolved concept and execute it. I start with materials and instinct, and something emerges.

I've been doing this for over twenty years. The work has moved through a lot of territories — precise geometric minimalism, abstract oil pastel drawings, digital and analog collage — and for a long time I thought that range was a problem. The art world tends to want you to be one thing, consistently, and I felt that pressure. Eventually, it got loud enough that I stopped hearing myself. I made less. I questioned more. For a while, I was making art for everyone except myself, which is a good way to stop making art altogether.

What pulled me back was getting honest about how I actually work. The geometric minimalism and the rough oil pastel drawings and the collage aren't different versions of me — they're all the same impulse expressed through differe...

I am self-taught. The education happened at home, in the margins of everything else, which turns out to be exactly where I do my best thinking.

Solo Exhibitions (Selected)

2018 · Suburban Seas · Promise You Art House · Highland, IN
2017 · Dark Matter · Chess Art Gallery, Purdue University · Hammond, IN
2017 · Pop-Up · Curated by Highland Redevelopment Commission · Highland, IN
2016 · Rhetorical Geometry · Wolff Gallery · Portland, OR
2014 · Expression for Isadora Duncan · White Ripple Gallery & Co. · Hammond, IN
2013 · Rudimentary · Walnut Ink Projects · Michigan City, IN
2011 · INside Out · Tool Shed Gallery · Milwaukee, WI
2010 · Masque · Substation No. 9 · Hammond, IN
2005 · Selected Works · Bernard Gallery · Whiting, IN

Group & Duo Exhibitions (Selected)

2021 · Beautiful Flower · Renoca Lobo Art Gallery · Valenzuela City, Philippines
2021 · Fluxus · Photography Center of Thessaloniki · Greece
2021 · Telephone · Online Exhibition · Brooklyn, NY
2020 · Identity · Art Fluent · Cape Cod, MA
2019 · Indy Windy: A Love Story · Marshall J. Gardner Center · Miller, IN
2018 · Degrees of Abstraction · 201 Gallery · Argonne, IL
2017 · Geometric Complexions · Zhou B Art Center · Chicago, IL
2016 · The Structure · Union Street Gallery · Chicago, IL
2015 · P.O.P: Perceptions of Population · 33 Contemporary Gallery · Chicago, IL
2014 · Curator's Choice · 10th National Self-...