Elizabeth Turrell

Elizabeth Turrell studied ceramics at the Central School of Art and Design, London. During the 1970s she established a highly regarded enamelling department at the School of Art and Design in Bristol, based on exploring non-traditional approaches to enamel.

This was followed by three years as an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow (2000- 03) at the University of the West of England. Elizabeth now heads enamel research, which includes the large-scale enamel facility within the Centre for Fine Print Research at UWE. The university generously funded the purchase and installation of a large-scale purpose-built enamel kiln, which has greatly enhanced the ambition to establish UWE as a centre of excellence in enamel research and professional practice. The new kiln, the largest in an educational institution in the UK, makes possible not only research into large-scale enamel but also supports UWE’s increasing reputation for undertaking large public art commissions.

Elizabeth’s commissions have included being the co-ordinating artist for a series of twenty-seven large and seventy-five small vitreous enamel panels for the new Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

The enamel team at UWE produced all this work. Other commissions have included two commemorative pieces for the new building of the National Library for Women - The Fawcett Library, London Metropolitan University; three large enamel panels for the central desk at the New Library at Emerson’s Green for South Gloucestershire Council, and for SUSTRANS as part of their national Art and the Travelling Landscape Route 24. The Enamel Centre also works with visiting artists on various projects and commissions, including ceramist Richard Slee, Fashion Illustrator Julie Verhoeven, and installation artists Dail Behennah and Carole Waller.

One of Elizabeth’s long-term aims has been to raise the profile of vitreous enamel and, by exploring the creative potential of enamel on metal - particularly the possibilities of print in enamel - to make enamel a more established area of the visual arts. She is currently creating an International Contemporary Vitreous Enamel Archive: The first section on contemporary artists is now on-line. http://archives.uwe.ac.uk Elizabeth was a tutor on the Foundation course at UWE from 1988 -2000, a visiting tutor on the Enamel Programme at San Diego State University for the Spring Semester 1988, and also at Towson State University Maryland in 1990. Since 2000 she has been invited to be a visiting artist or speaker at several institutions in India: including the JJ School of Art in Bombay, the National Museum of Modern Art, New Delhi, and the Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi and the Jindal Arts Foundation. In 2003, she undertook a six week winter session as a visiting artist at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, USA. Last year she led a two-week workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, USA. She also teaches regular workshops at West Dean College in West Sussex and School of Jewellery at UCE, Birmingham.

In 2007 she was a juror for the Enamels Society’s International Exhibition in the USA, and also for Playing With Fire to be shown at Devon Guild. In 2007 she curated and coordinated the Enamel Experience: International Badge Exhibition in partnership with the Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg. This exhibition will travel to six venues in the USA during 2008 and 2009. Other exhibitions include curating Contemporary Print in Enamel for IMPACT, the International Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference in Bristol in 1999, this exhibition was then shown at Studio Fusion Gallery London, and in the USA - at the School of Art Gallery, Kent State University, and East Carolina University.

She was the Symposium and workshop coordinator for the International Enamel Symposium at UWE in 2000. Elizabeth exhibits nationally and internationally; in addition she has taught widely both in the UK, USA, Sweden, Germany and India; and is a director of Studio Fusion Gallery in London - the first gallery in the UK specialising in enamel.

contact: Elizabeth.Turrell@uwe.ac.uk