Liz Helman

Artist Statement/Biography

Liz Helman is an artist working in time-based media, which includes sound. She is London based, self-taught and with no formal training as a composer.

As a multi-disciplinary artist, Liz has always had an interest in ambient music and sound art as a form of expression. Her work, both visual and sonic, is a response to place and environment. Sensitive to how these energies make her feel, she is interested in the subliminal and sonic exploration of these experiences. By walking the streets, and experiencing different levels of sounds, layers and textures she always begins her process with field recordings before studio intervention. She very much likes working experimentally, following the thread of the sound to its ultimate destination, which she likes to think of as sonic alchemy.

She signed to Kohlenstoff Records, a Montreal-based label and arts-collective in 2015. Since then she has been slowly evolving, and has been involved in various projects along the way. March 2017 saw her performing at KINO CISKA, for so.und.ing DUO, part of a yearly series of concerts initiated by CONA, the Institute for Contemporary Arts Processing, Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2016 she was invited was included in the line-up with David Toop and Steve Beresford at MUSLAB 2016, at Chelsea College of Art, London. Sound pieces have also been heard at New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2014 and video works have been shown in London and abroad including: MUSLAB Festival, Mexico, 2014; Millenium Film Workshop, New York, 2014; LAB Film Festival at Hackney Wicked, London 2014; Bermuda Triangle Test Engineers benefit for Resonance FM, 2014; LOOP Video Festival, Barcelona 2011; Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, part of festival shorts with Barbara Hammer, BFI, London, 2011; FrinGe Film Fest 2011; Wunderland at tactileBosch, Cardiff 2011; Supermarket Stockholm Art Fair 2011; Whitechapel Gallery Open Screenings, 2010; Rich Mix Cultural Centre, London, UK, 10; Counted Weekend Festival, Roundhouse, London, 2010; Portobello Film Festival 2008; Visions in the Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust 2008; WAVE [Hybridity, Identity & the Self] – Ewha Arts Center, M-Post Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 2006.

Independent curation projects include Facing You, a photography exhibition for Fringe! – Gay Film Festival, 2012; Roma London in 2010; Before.After.Now – Visions of Iraq – a show on Iraqi Art Deluxe Gallery, Hoxton, London 2003. And under the banner of [noplaceprojects*], the exhibitions RePlace in 2009 and no place in 2008. She also has appeared as an Andy Warhol in Yason Banal’s installation piece, Last Warhol Stand Inn at Tate Modern’s 10th Anniversary Festival of Independents in 2010.

Daylight Dreaming – Liz Helman
[KOHL036]

“… In essence this four track, twenty-five minute long recording is an engaging long trip through a tunnel, an endless channel. It’s an potent, inebriating mix.”
TJ NORRIS / TONESHIFT, MAY 30, 2018
https://toneshift.net/2018/05/30/daylight-dreaming-by-liz-helman/

” This is all quite solid stuff. It is never easy or laidback,
but it oozes danger and excitement, like the traffic turned hiss in ‘Somewhere Last Summer’…”
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly
http://www.vitalweekly.net/1136.html