‘Black & Blue’ (2026), approx. 260x260cm, compostable cornstarch (food waste recycling bags) coloured with vegetable dyes from kitchen waste saddened with iron, seeds of edible plants with medicinal qualities, and silk.
This work is part of a series of monochrome squares pursuing Elton’s overarching concerns about nourishment, waste, regeneration and our relationship with the earth. Taking their cue from Malevich’s ‘Black Square’, they embrace the possibility of new beginnings.
Elton sees her position as anti-heroic, immersed in the repetitive daily tasks of life, with anxiety about the future captured in the material, the pigments and the subject matter of her work. Biodegradable compost bags form the material substance of ‘Black & Blue’, which hovers somewhere between landscape painting and sculpture (Elton is member of both Contemporary British Painting and the Royal Society of Sculptors). Much of the colour is produced from the artist’s own kitchen waste, directly referencing her body’s life cycle, through the daily food she prepares and consumes.
The work is often laced with seeds, chosen to underpin narratives, so for example, seeds of plants which are included in a compost accelerator, of plants that have medicinal qualities, or edible native plants that establish themselves on waste ground. Although work like this is ephemeral, it carries within it an idea of the eternal, of the potential for re-growth and renewal.
Living with ephemeral work such as ‘Black & Blue’ may offer a contemplative experience. Seemingly breathing gently as the air moves around them, slowly showing their changes, they embrace both making and unmaking, death and life, anxious, but carrying the possibility of hope.
‘Elton asks us to do the work of staying with the grief as something non-linear and inherently connected to the processes and ecological cycles of life. Compost-like, her metamorphic practice generously opens up a space between letting go and holding on, a site for conversations and continuations.’ Anna Souter, 2025
Black and Blue reel
Liz is the recipient of a Mark Rothko Memorial Trust Artist in Residence Award, and her work has been shown in the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition three times. She has been artist in residence at Florence Trust, Groundswell Regenerative Farming Festival, and on the Isle of Eigg at the Bothy Project, supported by Winsor and Newton. Commissions include Hospital Rooms, with Kent and Medway Trust, and Unilever Archives. Solo and two person shows include ‘Takeaway’, Punta Gallery and Cable-Depot, Sofia, ‘Fragile Surface’ with Charlie Warde and Cable-Depot, Artissima, Turin, ‘Liz Elton and Effie Burns’, Kath Wood’s ‘Art at Home’, ‘Ground, Falling Away’, The Gunpowder Store, Daugavpils Fortress, Latvia, and ‘Yield’ at Gallery 163, Herne Hill. Recent group shows include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2026, ‘Landscape: A Changed Environment’, Messums, Cork Street, London, London Art Fair 2026 with the Royal Society of Sculptors, ‘Cathedral’, HilbertRaum, Berlin, ‘Market of Desire’, Cable Depot, Sofia, Bulgaria, Hospital Rooms Digital Art School Installation and Auction, Hauser and Wirth, Savile Row, London, and 'Life Boat', APT, Deptford. She has a BA in History of Art (UCL), a BA in Painting (Wimbledon, UAL) and an MA in Fine Art (Chelsea, UAL). Liz is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, PSSA and Contemporary British Painting.
lizelton.com (with video clips here)
@liz_elton
@compost_tales
This work is part of a series of monochrome squares pursuing Elton’s overarching concerns about nourishment, waste, regeneration and our relationship with the earth. Taking their cue from Malevich’s ‘Black Square’, they embrace the possibility of new beginnings.
Elton sees her position as anti-heroic, immersed in the repetitive daily tasks of life, with anxiety about the future captured in the material, the pigments and the subject matter of her work. Biodegradable compost bags form the material substance of ‘Black & Blue’, which hovers somewhere between landscape painting and sculpture (Elton is member of both Contemporary British Painting and the Royal Society of Sculptors). Much of the colour is produced from the artist’s own kitchen waste, directly referencing her body’s life cycle, through the daily food she prepares and consumes.
The work is often laced with seeds, chosen to underpin narratives, so for example, seeds of plants which are included in a compost accelerator, of plants that have medicinal qualities, or edible native plants that establish themselves on waste ground. Although work like this is ephemeral, it carries within it an idea of the eternal, of the potential for re-growth and renewal.
Living with ephemeral work such as ‘Black & Blue’ may offer a contemplative experience. Seemingly breathing gently as the air moves around them, slowly showing their changes, they embrace both making and unmaking, death and life, anxious, but carrying the possibility of hope.
‘Elton asks us to do the work of staying with the grief as something non-linear and inherently connected to the processes and ecological cycles of life. Compost-like, her metamorphic practice generously opens up a space between letting go and holding on, a site for conversations and continuations.’ Anna Souter, 2025
Black and Blue reel
Liz is the recipient of a Mark Rothko Memorial Trust Artist in Residence Award, and her work has been shown in the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition three times. She has been artist in residence at Florence Trust, Groundswell Regenerative Farming Festival, and on the Isle of Eigg at the Bothy Project, supported by Winsor and Newton. Commissions include Hospital Rooms, with Kent and Medway Trust, and Unilever Archives. Solo and two person shows include ‘Takeaway’, Punta Gallery and Cable-Depot, Sofia, ‘Fragile Surface’ with Charlie Warde and Cable-Depot, Artissima, Turin, ‘Liz Elton and Effie Burns’, Kath Wood’s ‘Art at Home’, ‘Ground, Falling Away’, The Gunpowder Store, Daugavpils Fortress, Latvia, and ‘Yield’ at Gallery 163, Herne Hill. Recent group shows include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2026, ‘Landscape: A Changed Environment’, Messums, Cork Street, London, London Art Fair 2026 with the Royal Society of Sculptors, ‘Cathedral’, HilbertRaum, Berlin, ‘Market of Desire’, Cable Depot, Sofia, Bulgaria, Hospital Rooms Digital Art School Installation and Auction, Hauser and Wirth, Savile Row, London, and 'Life Boat', APT, Deptford. She has a BA in History of Art (UCL), a BA in Painting (Wimbledon, UAL) and an MA in Fine Art (Chelsea, UAL). Liz is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, PSSA and Contemporary British Painting.
lizelton.com (with video clips here)
@liz_elton
@compost_tales