Liz Roth

ARTIST BIO:
Liz Roth’s art has been shown in 100+ competitive exhibitions, and over a dozen solo exhibitions.

She has won numerous prestigious art grants (OVAC Art 365, Ludwig Vogelstein Grant in Painting, Wisconsin State Arts Board Individual Fellowship) and been invited to more than a dozen national and international residencies, including: The Golden Foundation, The Awagami Paper Factory, Xiaoxiang International Printmaking Center, Jentel, the Kamiyama Artist in Residence, Ucross, the Wrangell Mountain Center and the Grand Canyon National park.

As a 2019 Fulbright Scholar in Guangzhou, she delivered two TedX presentations and eight visiting artist lectures around the country. She also designed and completed a mural in Shikoku Japan with children at their school for children with disabilities.

Her work has been acquired by the Walker Museum of Art, the Museu del Joguet in Spain, Museum of Wisconsin Art, and the Museum of Awa Japanese Paper. Her work has been exhibited in the Rendez-vous International du Carnet de Voyage in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, CO, the Museum of Northern Arizona in  Flagstaff, AZ and the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, WA.

Roth earned her BA at Smith College (Russian) and her MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Graphics). She is a professor of painting and drawing at Oklahoma State University.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
In 2019 when I was a Fulbright Scholar in Guangzhou (China) I spent six weeks drawing along the terrestrial silk route. I noticed much of this route lies along the 40th parallel. After I researched the latitude, I began 40 Degrees North, a 12-year project where I am traversing the globe at this latitude, drawing and painting what I see.

The 40th parallel encompasses a tremendous diversity of ecosystems and landforms, and contains nearly the most landmass of any parallel. It crosses many significant cities and regions, including Madrid, Majorca, Istanbul, Sardinia, Baku, Samarkand, Kashgar, Dunhuang, and Beijing, among others. In the US it is the Mason-Dixon line, the Nebraska/Kansas boundary, the site of the 19^th century Fortieth Parallel Surveys with Timothy H. O’Sullivan’s famous photographs, and much of interstate highway I-80.

I’m interested in how different people’s experiences and knowledge influence what they see (is it a glorious expanse of American scenery, or stolen land? Natural resources or environmental catastrophe?). Onsite drawing leads to curiosity, questions, and nuanced thinking about place. In my studio, I create oil paintings and screenprints based on my travel drawings, watercolors and photographs. I hope the works hold the complexity and ambiguity of multiple interpretations.