Biography

Liz Ingram was born in Argentina and grew up in New Delhi, Mumbai and Toronto. For over forty years she taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and is currently Distinguished University Professor Emerita of printmaking and drawing/intermedia. Her artworks have been exhibited in numerous solo and duo exhibitions, and over 300 group exhibitions in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. She has participated in juried International Biennials and Triennials for many years and has received awards for her prints at juried exhibitions in Canada, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), Poland, Korea, Brazil, Estonia, India and Finland. In 1998 Ingram was elected into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 2008 she received the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence at the University of Alberta and was inducted into the City of Edmonton Hall of Fame, in 2009 she was elected into the Royal Society of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture, in 2011 she was awarded the University Cup (the University’s highest academic honour), and in 2016 she was appointed to the Order of Canada. She has been visiting artist at universities in North America and overseas including the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, the Musashino Art University in Tokyo and the University of Applied Sciences in Münster, Germany.

Installations and Exhibits

Liz Ingram is currently working in various media including etching, photo intaglio, digital media, and installation. Large public commissions include: Touching Water: Anticipation and Memory, Edmonton International Airport, 2004; Confluence Through the Looking Glass, Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Calgary, Canada, 2011; and Water Ways, Sensing Connections, Fort McMurray International Airport, 2014. A few selected exhibitions include: Liz Ingram: Print Encounters 1984 - 2014, Prince Takamado Gallery, Embassy of Canada, Tokyo, Japan, 2015; Liz Ingram: Transition and Transformation, Schwabenakademie, Irsee, Germany, 2013-14; The New World, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary, 2013; Perceptions of Promise, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, and the Chelsea Art Museum in New York USA, 2011; Beyond Printmaking: Images in Objects (installation), the Jesuits Gallery of Contemporary Art, Poznan, Poland, 2009; Imagining Science: An Artistic Exploration of Science, Society and Social Change, (Installation) Art Gallery of Alberta, 2008: Human/Nature: Contemporary Canadian Installation (4 artists), Doland Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China, 2004; Fragile Source 2, Open Studio Gallery, Toronto, 2003; Liz Ingram: Fragile Source, Edmonton Art Gallery, 2001; Lines of Site, Gulbenkian Galleries, London, England, and Musashino Museum and Library, Tokyo, Japan, 1999.

Artistic Vision

The human body and the elemental in nature are recurring sources for Ingram’s art practice, which investigates transitional states between material presence and the ephemeral, and issues relating to the fragility of life and the environment. In an attempt to reawaken an understanding of our fundamental connections with nature, she is currently using images of glistening water and the human body, focusing on a specific lake site in the Alberta boreal forest. With the aid of the printed image, paper and ink, glass, light, shimmering pixels and fabric, she wishes to give the viewer an experience that will tap childhood memories of the sensation of playing in water, and will celebrate the wonder of this endangered and essential substance. Her work represents an attempt to re-awaken our fundamental connections and our oneness with nature, and our awareness of the elemental aspect of water to all life forms.