-022 Liza Wolters
If there is one thing that you can change in a previous project of yours, what would it be?
Photo by Cedric Veldhuis
When I copy-pasted the question “If there is one thing that you can change in a previous project of yours, what would it be?”, the sentence accidentally pasted itself three times in a big and pointy font on a black surface, underneath each other. As if with every reoccurrence more danger got put in the words, almost shrieking to me now: “YES LIZA, WHAT WOULD IT BE?”.
In an instant, ’would’ became ‘will’, activating contemplations about how things could, will or should (have) be(en). Spoiler alert: in the end it’s all about continuation, even when it feels you’re not doing a great job at it.
Fragments from a constellation of freckles, site-specific studio installation at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn - New York, Summer of 2025.
Detail from ongoing project Motherstones, part of a constellation of freckles, site-specific studio installation at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn - New York, Summer of 2025.
Instead of being a soft and innocent conversation starter with myself, the question now has entered my retina sharply, haunting and lurking; putting pressure in ways only repetition can do. But as we all know, repetition also makes practice – not perfection.
And maybe this is my problem with questions in general: I rather like them to stay unanswered and sit with me for a while, or a lifetime. My nonlineair being has never been able to answer any questions directly, honestly, and it has cost me many nights of solid sleep. If there’s one thing I know now, it’s that I always want to change everything, and at the same time never want things to not stay the same as I found them. And with them, I mean the findings I encounter when I walk around, eager to feel connected and grasp upon something that touches me, often metaphorically speaking, in many ways. To me, it’s a constant movement about what you pick up and what you leave (out). Never seems a work really finished, and often it only starts to exist after its first shown form.
Fragments from a constellation of freckles, site-specific studio installation at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn New York, Summer of 2025.
So I collect and recollect, letting photographs, (found) objects, videos, sounds and words come together and drift apart again. And then later, in another form, another exhibition, they might meet again: with each other as well with other new findings.
It’s this back and forth that makes my practice lively, and trust me, it can be a burden. I’m left to chance encounters, and I cannot blame -and praise at the same time- anyone else but myself. After all, it does take some guts to not know what you’re actually doing while knowing exactly what you want to do.
her her, Site-specific installation in the group exhibition UNDERCURRENTS, NARS Foundation, Brooklyn New York, Summer of 2025.
Consisting of:
Photograph of a trashbag in water printed on organic silk, steel frame as carrier, CRT television with a video following fragments around Kimlau Square, a portal that cries or drips, text on the wall ‘you know…I love this city as much as I love my mother’, a yellow light bulb, two intimate forks, a concrete stone with two holes, a pierced pin, a photograph of a wall that continues while taking a break, projection of waiting cars on ceiling.
bodily metaphors of various kinds, 7 screens video installation (5.55 min), part of the group exhibition Generous Bodies, Generous Minds, organized by the program ArtEra from Erasmus MC, 2023.
During a needed walk this summer, in the midst of a rough contemplation about the fear that my work was not coming together (yet) for an exhibition, the dear friend walking next to me smirked and said, compassionate yet relieved from her own position as a more studio-based artist: “Dear, I do not envy your work method at all.” We bittersweetly laughed together, and the only temporary answer I had at that moment was that I do not envy my own work method either.
At the same time I wouldn’t want it any other way – and yes, I know this sounds cheesy, forgive me. My own process of making gives me the strongest feeling of connection when I feel I’ve been able to capture moments that I want to keep close. I feel exhilarated and grounded when someone else also sees something in it, leaving their own interpretation on the works, as an ever-changing mark.
Orchestrating Coincidence - documentation of the one-off site-specific exhibition at gallery Nieuw Charlois, Rotterdam (2023). A project by Hilde Onis and Liza Wolters, an edition of 30 unique sculptures existing of 26 individuals, 2 pairs and 5 artist proofs + an accompanied leporello catalog designed by Janne Beldman.
I have become more gentle over the years towards myself concerning this area of tension called ‘my work method’. My work has to relate to where I’m at, physically, mentally, and metaphorically. It cannot leave out the breathing species and places I pass by and spend time with: they’re all in it. In a life full of organization, structures, and deadlines, ‘my work method’ has become my most natural way of perceiving the world and to practice how to stay open.
A fork with a gap in between, dividing its four teeth into two pairs like spread legs, can be found on a sidewalk and just be left there. Just like it is, or how it has become due to a production error. You can find it dirty, you can perceive it as something that resonates with something within you, bringing it to your studio or even tattoo it on your right arm as a reminder of many things.
(all of it but not all of it), 2022/2023. A four-storey layered installation spread over the stairwell and elevator of Museum SCHUNCK*, enclosing their position as in-between spaces in relation to a text, a soundtrack, several photographs, videos and objects. The installation was part of the Parkstad Limburg Prijs ‘22 exhibition at SCHUNCK*.
I never had that something didn’t strike me, maybe because I’m more a sponge than a human. I’m happy with ‘mistakes’, and I can be very unhappy about ‘mistakes’: there’s always this thin line. I do know now that I need to trust my eyes and experience and give everything a little bit more time than I did and do. Creating work requires time and attention. It’s stating the obvious, but at the same time being in process can be terrifying like crazy. So I help myself to stay calm and leave questions open with curiosity and a healthy dose of self-determination. To keep on going can mean to pause and see.
It more or less comes down to this: everything I’ve done until now would have been completely different if I did it now. If I did it now, it would not have become what it became back then. So I might as well reflect with a gentle gaze, knowing I can and always continue to do things differently – picking up what needs to be picked up, leaving what needs to stay exactly where it is.
Until I pick it up again.
“a touch that comes from afar”
“(to have) time to say goodbye”
A site-specific installation including relational text, photography, video with the space and present works by others, Part of the group exhibition The Things That Find Us, 2024.
About Liza Wolters
The practice of visual artist Liza Wolters (1992, The Netherlands) is a fluid repository that is constantly growing, consisting of experiences and encounters, finds and materials that come together and grow apart again. She works with photography, video, installations, writing, sound, publications, and (found) objects.
In her practice, she places great value on transience and chance, on how memories work, and explores ideas about the in-between. Through a stance of artistic wandering, she translates events and memories into photography, video, (found) objects, and language: what she encounters can be everything, but not anything. In exhibitions, publications, collaborations, and installations, materials from her growing archive are brought together and become intertwined with new observations recorded on site.
Liza Wolters’ work is a continuous relational process of organizing, analyzing, and supplementing the archive — a living space of preservation.
The relational is also reflected in her collaborations with other artists working across different media and materials, and in the ways she engages with cultural institutions and organizations to contribute ideas on core values and change, co-creating a sustainable and healthy organism while continuing to contribute to the cultural field as a whole.
In the spring of 2025, Liza was an artist in residence at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently developing multiple projects that began there, evolving into a new series of works including an analogue film, a photo series, and soundscapes based on ideas about grief and joy, and the city as an exhausted/exhausting main character.
All images courtesy of the artist.
lizawolters.com