Lives and works in Liverpool.
At CBS Gallery and Framing
Kez was born in Liverpool and based at CBS Gallery and Framing. Kez is an Castlefield Gallery Associate Member, currently employed by FACT Liverpool and Tate Liverpool, and a Graduate Mentee 23/24 with Castlefield Gallery. She is a graduate from Manchester School of Art and previously completed the first two years of her degree at Falmouth University.
Artist Statement
Kez’s work grows from personal experiences of growing up within a working-class family in Liverpool, on concrete pathways, to walking and climbing through the UK landscape. Across drawing to performance, within her practice the central characteristic is the methodical mark-making that reveals her physical and emotional tensions.
Her process is bodily, playful and research based. Reflecting on walking and climbing across our natural environment reveals themes of romanticism, land ownership, climate change and grief. What she once thought as ‘wild’ landscapes is explored and challenged. Such as, with the materiality of found objects, the locations, or her body’s relationship to journeying through our landscape. These ideas also manifest in live durational performance drawings, where she uses chalk to map the movements of climbing routes, alongside recent oil stick spirals that reflect on cycles of nature, life, death. Kez create’s a present, meditative experience for the audience, encouraging them to contemplate their own relationship with the environment, particularly in the face of neoliberal pressures and ecological crises.
Kez aims to give the audience time and space to connect and reflect upon our relationship to nature. Through extended durational live art or encouraging the viewers to gaze up through binoculars upon the peaks. These interactive elements create a present moment engaging the audience to enjoy and subtly reflect upon their relationship with the natural world, in turn gently speaking to the broader issues of land ownerships, climate change and neoliberalism.
Recorded work available on: youtube.com/@keziahthomas-mellor8127
2022-2023 work available on: https://keziahtm.wixsite.com/k-is-for-kez