more about elizabeth…
My Grandmother Beatrice has been the most significant influence on my work as an artist. She was a 1910 graduate of the Art Institute in Chicago. She became a commercial artist ending up as a missionary in China, illustrating books with woodblock prints.
Beatrice died jumping out of a burning airplane somewhere near Cheng Du in 1945. Even though I never met her, I knew her intimately through the paintings she left behind. She was a legend.
My mother also painted, and as a small child, I saw her transported in the process of her painting. I just always assumed I would paint. It was not so much what I wanted to do as much as who I am.
I grew up in Hong Kong and saw poverty first hand. I witnessed the struggle most people go through just to get through the day.
As a teen, I endured a difficult life at home. At 16, I ran away and never looked back.
At 22, I had my first child and raised her on my own while working in the fashion industry in Toronto, Canada. 1985 found me moving to Los Angeles.
Despite all the glitter of LA, while working many different jobs by day, I pursued my art at night, during lunch breaks and on weekends.
Painting was reconnecting me to my past and where the world dissolved around me.
I've studied at the Ontario College of Art and Otis Parsons in Los Angeles.