self-portrait 2024

 

Lizz Freeman, a community-taught artist based in New Orleans, LA, began showcasing her work at MARS Artspace in Phoenix, AZ, at the age of 15. 

After her role as the executive director of a nonprofit dedicated to textile sustainability and community education, Freeman returned to the studio full time in September 2024.

Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses embroidery, quilting, photography, printmaking, and installation. Exploring themes of identity, motherhood, environmental impact, and whatever the hell is happening in the world these days.

With a background in retail clothing middle management, Freeman's art practice evolved from a deep concern for industry waste, leading her to teach sewing and fiber arts within the New Orleans community.

Through her meticulous process and a preference for repurposed materials, Freeman seamlessly intertwines her passion for photography with a reverence for textiles, crafting works that are uniquely captivating, environmentally conscious, and layered thick with visual language.

My work begins with personal photographs-often self-portraits from years past-and takes shape through salvaged fabric, thread, and slow, tactile processes. In my 100-square-foot home studio in flood-prone New Orleans, I translate memory into textiles by stitching, cyanotyping pressed flowers from my garden, and dyeing fabric with plants I’ve tended for nearly a decade. I move between machine quilting, hand sewing, and block carving, staying close to the physical rhythm of making. Years spent working with clothing and witnessing the scale of textile waste have committed me to using secondhand materials, connecting environmental care with personal history. Humor and improvisation have long been tools for navigating uncertainty, and while my work is rarely overtly funny, it’s shaped by that same spark: the joy of surprise, the charge of the unexpected, and the surreal ways past and present overlap in both fabric and self.

Recent exhibitions include:

Parts Unknown Vol.2, Staple Goods, New Orleans LA, Aug 2024

Treehouse, Traveler's, New Orleans, LA, April 2024

Master of None, Studio Archive Project, April 2023

Future Tense, The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, Lincoln, NE, Feb 2023

Within This Expanse, The Post Office, Port Ewan, NY, Nov 2022

Tongue and Groove, Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, LA, Oct 2022

  • Camera gives artist, 15, career dream by Jennifer Barrett The Arizona Republic 1996

    I used to be kind of embarrassed by this article. But now that it’s almost 30 years later, I am blown away by 15-year-old Lizz’s drive and determination.