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30 November 2008
Born in 1949 in Maryborough, Victoria, textile artist, Liz Williamson spent years learning about textiles from her mother and through extensive travels throughout Asia in the 1970s.
Williamson studied textile design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and in 1985 established her own weaving studio in Sydney. Her fine handwoven scarves and wraps display her characteristic interest in the construction of cloth, with their unique surface appearance created through the interlacing of threads of different fibre content.
A major development in her practice occurred in 1998 when Williamson was introduced to a computerised Jacquard loom at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles in Canada. Her resulting designs explore the restorative practice of times past and in particular, the art of darning.
Williamson has exhibited in numerous exhibitions both here and abroad, including many important group and survey shows, such as Smart works: design and the handmade (2006), Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and Material Culture (2005), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Since 2001 she has been involved with several development projects in Asia, working with skilled weavers in Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Pakistan, many of whom she met while teaching at a UNESCO workshop in Hanoi in 2001. Williamson has been an influential teacher and mentor in the field of textiles and is currently Head of School at the School of Design Studies, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
