self-portrait 2024

 

Lizz Freeman, a community-taught artist, began showing her work in Phoenix, AZ, at the age of 15. She was derailed by life on her way to art school and spent nearly 30 years with her studio practice relegated to predawn hours. Her multi-disciplinary practice began with photography and has evolved to encompass textile arts, printmaking, and installation.

Her work has been shown across the United States and is in private collections around the world.

She lives in New Orleans with her daughter and husband.

Artist Statement

My practice is grounded in inquiry and process, and it’s scaffolded by my huge archive of textiles collected mostly in New Orleans. My choice of material comes from a reaction to massive modern day textile waste and a deep respect for what fabric is capable of.  I really enjoy the limitations that come from using materials that already exist to conjure something into being.

I enjoy the physicality of making objects. My primary tools are a sewing machine and hand sewing needles; making the rhythm of my work shift between fast and slow. I believe the act of making something is as close to performing magic as you can get.

I understand things fully when I can look back at them to find pattern and context. Art making is the only way I have found to process my experience in life.  This means the recurring themes in my work are related to my identity in the modern world; and the world right now makes me feel adamant about creating physical objects using already existing resources.

I want my work to intrigue a viewer. To bring them in and provide a space to explore and consider. To think about how each image or object in an assemblage relates to each other and to us. The pieces will reward those who enjoy paying attention. In the carefully embroidered photographs or invisibly assembled fabric collage of items and imagery spanning the archives of a post industrialized US and beyond. Reflecting on how we got here and what the landscape feels like as a person who feels things deeply.

Recent exhibitions include:

Surreal Salon 18, Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA, January 2026

Semaphore (SOLO), The Parlour Gallery, New Orleans, LA, October 2025

Future Tense, The Joseph Gross Gallery, Tucson, AZ, September 2025

FELT, Glassel Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA, August 2025

And Now for Something New Vol. 7, LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, LA, August 2025

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 a few decades later, I am blown away by 15-year-old Lizz’s drive and determination.