Elizabeth Clark
1947-2008
Born in Sherbrooke Quebec in 1947, Elizabeth Clark received a diploma in painting from the Alberta College of Art, Calgary, in 1984, and went on to earn a Certificate in Museology (1992) along with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (1994) from Concordia University in Montreal. Her work was featured in many group and solo exhibitions, mostly in the Calgary region, but also in Quebec, and she is represented in several public and private collections, including that of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
In addition to her career as an artist, she was active in a volunteer capacity with many arts organizations in Calgary, including the New Gallery as well as the Burns Visual Arts Society and the Leighton Centre. She held numerous museum positions, including Gallery Assistant at Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Pointe Claire, Quebec, Art Rental Project Coordinator and later Curatorial Assistant at the Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Registrar and Technician at the Triangle Gallery, Calgary, and Accessible Art Coordinator and Development Assistant at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary.
Elizabeth Clark worked in printmaking, photography and construction of three-dimensional objects as well as with installation works. A body of work that occupied her for a period of time involved using clothing as metaphor, creating artworks out of “found,” non-traditional materials to create paradox and irony. Later artworks focused on how we “personalize space, mark territory and create shrines with personal artifacts,” and included, for example, an installation titled “Fragments of Culture” that involved photo documentation of various automobile rear view mirrors that had been personalized by the owners with hung objects that expressed unique meaning and significance.
