Elizabeth Forrest

Biography

Elizabeth Forrest is a Welsh-born lettering artist and papermaker, now living in Derbyshire. She obtained her Honours degree in Art and English at the University of Wales and later completed the Society of Scribes and Illuminator’s Advanced Training Scheme in Calligraphy. Her work is a unique, highly personal response to text from the varied sources which inspire her and is based on a love of words, combined with a passion for colour and texture.

Some pieces are delicate gouache illustrations with pen-written lettering. Other three-dimensional pieces incorporate hand-made, textured paper, combined with strong use of colour and words painted with a fine brush. Paper and paint combine to produce a strong sense of visual drama.

Sometimes words and quotations suggest their own visual imagery, while at other times a texture or a particular ‘palette’ of colours influences her choice of words. She uses text as a springboard for making her own personal visual statement.

She is also interested in applying lettering to surfaces other than paper and has, for example, worked with women’s clothes and accessories, metal, wood and stitched lettering on fabric.

She has exhibited widely and in 2013 was elected Member of The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. All lettering commissions considered.