FORMATTED FOR MOBILE ONLY

"Dark Eclipse" is a new portal space that comes from Cave of Secrets, the immersive installation Liz Collins created for the New Museum in 2017 for the Trigger: Gender as a Tool and as a Weapon exhibition there.

This new space was envisioned with the same set of spatial ideas around light in darkness, mystery, illumination, sensuality, quietude, hidden spaces, portals, caves, and other worlds; combined with a specific aesthetic language coming from the early 80s, specifically from an iconic, high New Wave film called Liquid Sky (dir. Slava Tsukerman, 1981), that was a heavy influence on the artist, who was a young teenager at the time she first saw it. In the film are passages where characters experience euphoria, which then transition frame by frame into abstraction, into balls of color, and finally to a black screen, in each instance. These passages are encapsulated in the carpet and wallpaper in this space, and the atmosphere here is meant to hold the same kind of surreal, otherworldly glow that happens throughout the film.

Makeup and fashion are key aspects of this story, with the film depicting a subculture of early 80s nightlife and unique style of Downtown NYC. Dark Eclipse allows visitors to engage directly with this dark neon palette as makeup, and to self style as desired, carrying pieces of this seductive dream world away from the space.

Liz Collins works fluidly between art and design, with emphasis and expertise in fiber and textile media. Vivid palettes, dynamic patterning, and the transformation of yarn and fabric into multi-dimensional forms are of of the ways she creates pieces and environments that vary in scale, from the object -based to the immersive and architectural.

Embracing abstraction, optics, and extreme material contrasts, and surrounding the viewer in vibrating color fields, Collins explores the boundaries between painting, fiber arts and installation, intuitively laying bare expressions of energy, emotion, and viscerality of existence.

She has had solo exhibitions at the Tang Museum. BGSQD, LMAK and Heller Gallery in New York, AMP in Provincetown, MA, the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee, Gallery DLUL in Ljublijana, Slovenia, and has staged large scale performance/installations in Los Angeles, Zagreb, and on an island in New York City, among many other places.

Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions at art fairs, galleries and museums internationally, including Spring Break, NADA, Collective, Arte Laguna, the ICA/Boston, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. The Museum of FIT, the New Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, MoMA, Sargent's Daughters, September Gallery, NoLAB Istanbul, and Drawing center. Collins' awards include a USA Fellowship, a MacColl Johnson Fellowship, and residencies at Siena Art Institute, MacDowell, Haystack, Yaddo, and the Museum of Arts and Design.

She is part of the Queer Art Mentorship program, and is on the Exhibitions Committee at the Leslie Lohman Museum and is currently in the Open Sessions program at the Drawing Center.

Doing a project in LA- a place I love and where I want my artwork to have a much bigger life.The other artists in the project- good company, nice mix of great people, diverse and exciting vision.The opportunity to bring the Cave of Secrets story into a new iteration,Flavor Paper partnership, and healthy support for the project, which makes it all the more feasible.

Art makes people happy by portraying aspects of existence: from spirit, to nature, to love, to beauty, to all the senses--- everything! Often in ways that one could never imagine until they see it.

Art fills people with wonder and gives us time to see and take in things that feed our souls and spirits in ways we often cannot predict or control.

Art makes artists happy- especially ones like me who believe that art is their calling. Art-making is a clear line to spirit, love, and living ones' truths at the deepest level.Art does everything other things do not.