Liz K Miller - Artist & Researcher

Born: Hexham, UK.

Lives & works: Lewes, UK.

 

Liz K Miller is an interdisciplinarity artist and researcher. She works at the intersection of sound and imagery, exploring the listening experience through visual diagramming, mapping, scoring, sketching and drawing. Her making techniques range from printmaking, pigment-making and cyanotype to field recording and digital audio analysis. She combines these techniques to create installations, works-on-paper, podcasts and performances. 

 

Recent exhibitions include solo installations at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida, USA (2023), and Watts’ Artist Village, Surrey, UK (2020), and a solo exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery in collaboration with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2018). Conference presentations include Beyond Human Communication at Royal Holloway University, London (2022) and Seeing Sound at Bath Spa University (2020). Her artwork Forest Listening was used in the workshop Ways of Listening to Forests for the exhibition Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics at Centre for Art & Media Karlsruhe, Germany (2021). Field recording study sites include: The Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, with the Murmuration sound group (2018); the Caledonian Forest, Scotland, with conservation group Trees for Life (2019) and Blackheath Forest, England, in partnership with Surrey Hills Arts (2020). Recent audio works include Listening to Sylvan Sounds radio broadcast for Glasgow-based Radiophrenia series Current Trends in Sound and Transmission Arts (2020).

 

Liz is currently a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in the School of Arts and Humanities, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council in the Techné Doctoral Training Partnership. Her thesis title is Sylvan Sounds: Connecting to the Forest through Listening and Sound Visualisation. Her research considers how listening to the sounds made by trees can reconnect humans to the forest, and how the combination of audio and visual can be used to enhance that connection.

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Education

• 2017 – 2023 PhD Practice-based Fine Art, Royal College of Art, London

• 2015 – 2016 (PGCHE) PG Cert Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication, UAL, London

• 2008 – 2009 MA Visual Art: Printmaking, Camberwell College of Art, London

• 2003 – 2006 BA (Hons) Visual Communication: Illustration, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland

 

Teaching & Lecturing

• 2020 & 2023 Royal College of Art – Guest Lecturer – Pre-sessional Summer School

• 2019 London College of Communication – Visiting Lecturer – BA Information Experience Design

• 2019 Royal College of Art – Visiting Lecturer – MA History of Design

• 2015 – 2018 London College of Communication – Printmaking Technical Instructor

• 2013 – 2016 Royal Academy Schools. London – Print Fellow

• 2013 – 2015 London Metropolitan University – Printmaking Tutor – BA & MA Fine Art

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Awards

• 2018 Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Techne PHD Scholarship

• 2017 Flourish Award for Excellence in Printmaking

• 2017 Jackson's Art Prize

• 2015 Neo Art Prize Intaglio Award

• 2014 Spike Print Studio Award

• 2014 Art Academy Award

• 2013 Medway Fine Printmakers Prize

• 2009 Bainbridge Contemporary Screen Print Studio Award

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Residencies, Fellowships and Partnerships

• 2020 Surrey Hills Arts. Surrey Hills AONB – AHRC Techne Partner

• 2019 Listening to Field, Body and Voice. Bude – AHRC Techne Summer School

• 2018 The Object of Research. Cumbria – AHRC Techne Residency

• 2013 – 2016 Royal Academy Schools. London – Print Fellow

• 2015 Spike Island Print Studio. Bristol – Printmaker in Residence

• 2006 – 2008 George Watson’s College. Edinburgh – Artist in Residence

 

Research Presentations

• 2022 Beyond Human – Symposium – Royal Holloway University, London

• 2021 Ways of Listening to Forests for 'Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics', Centre for Art & Media Karlsruhe, Germany

• 2020 Forest Listening – Watts Gallery & Artists’ Village, Surrey, UK

• 2020 Seeing Sound – Symposium – Bath Spa University, Bath, UK

• 2020 New Materialism & Sustainable Cyanotypes – London Alternative Photography Collective

• 2019 Again & Again: Musical Repetition – Symposium – University of London, Music Department

• 2018 The Circular Scores. Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield, UK

• 2015 Scordatura. Bearspace Gallery, Deptford, London

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Memberships

• 2023 World Forum for Acoustic Ecology – Member

• 2016 Higher Education Academy – Fellow