a statement

There are so many objects in the world. Why add more?

Yet I am a maker and a builder.

Making allows me to be with the fullness of living on this planet now.

My studio provides me with emotional grounding and a pathway that reaches back to a timeless space of integral relationship with the things of this world.

My work may be regarded as animated abstraction. Content may be shaped by the associations of the viewer.

I am a sculptor by disposition. I honor the tradition of hand-built clay vessels, using my body as a reference point. How forms evolve in space is a kind of choreography. Imagery emerges from sources both organic and human-made; from the resistance and cooperation of materials, themselves. My work is informed by drawing, gesture, emptiness; by animism as an energetic and heart-based reality. My practice also provides me with a stage to acknowledge and process grief and loss in our time.

I am drawn to old growth trees and ancient species whose time on earth predates our own. Many are now endangered. Our lives are intertwined. How to discover the secrets they hold. The natural world is very much alive and in a dialogue of many tongues. I want to learn to listen.

BIO

Lindsay Iliff received her BFA in Sculpture from Boston University's School of Fine Arts in 1976. There she created life-size figures out of metal-and-wood armatures and clay.

During a brief relocation to Iowa City following graduation, Iliff was deeply affected by the performance of Merce Cunningham and his Dance Company.

Living in NYC in the late seventies and early eighties, she attended classes at the newly founded Feminist Art Institute and served as prop assistant to Carolee Shneemann in her performance, Swing. 

In the city, Lindsay worked as a model-maker for a display company, cutting sheets of plexiglass. Collecting those scraps, and a wealth of discarded treasures on the streets of the garment district, she constructed wall hangings and small sculptures in her spare time.

By 2001, Iliff had responded to the call of New Mexico and returned to studio practice. She has worked in various mediums: metals, painting, encaustic, collage, and cardboard, as well as clay.

Her paintings have been shown at Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM, digital prints at the NM Art League's exhibit, "Biologique," in Albuquerque, and, in 2018, her cardboard sculpture was included in group shows at City of Mud and Keep Contemporary in Santa Fe, NM.