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Liz Lott, the middle of three children, was born in 1970 in North Bay, Ontario as Elizabeth Ann May Lott. She was raised in Powassan, Ontario until 1984, and in Barrie, Ontario from 1984 to 1989.

In 1989, she moved to Schönenberg, Switzerland to become an au pair. In 1990, she returned to Barrie, Ontario, where she taught arts classes at the MacLaren Art Centre for a year. Also in 1990, she worked as a printing assistant to John Hartman, in Penetanguishene, Ontario. In 1991, she relocated to Perth, Ontario for three months, followed by three months in Warkukin, Kalimanta, Indonesia, both for the Canada World Youth program. In Borneo, Indonesia, she was an art instructor at Warukin Public School. Between 1988 and 1991, when not traveling, she was a private art instructor in Barrie. In 1992, she returned to Canada, living in Powassan from 1992 to 1993. In 1992, she was a visiting artist at the South Shore Education Centre in Nipissing Village, Ontario. She was a children's art instructor for the North Bay Art Centre (now the Capitol Centre) from 1994 to 1995, Art Club '96 in Powassan in 1996; Grace & The Great Gecko Art Store in 1997; the Concordia Centre, North Bay in 1996; and at the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery, representing White Water Gallery, from 2002 to the present. In 2006, she was hired by the Royal Conservatory of Music to teach for their artists in the schools program called Learning Through the Arts.

In 1993, she moved to North Bay, where she taught art classes at the North Bay Art Centre. In 1996, she moved to Montreal, Quebec, where she did one year in the studio art program at Concordia University. In 1997, she moved to Burk's Falls, where she lived with former partner, Peetr Nickle, and his father, Lawrence Nickle. She has a son with Peetr. In 1998, they moved to North Bay, where she is a self-employed portrait and wedding photographer.

She is presently on the board of White Water Gallery as co-chair of the programming committee (2006-) and she served on its board from 1994 to 1996.

Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at: Renee's Café, South River, Ontario (2005), The Downstairs Gallery, New Works in Photography, The Powassan and District Union Public Library (2004), Art in Public Places, Capitol Centre, North Bay, Ontario (2003), Woodland Gallery, South River, Ontario (1999), Ironworks Café and The Magic Kettle, North Bay, Ontario (1999), Renee's Café, South River, Ontario (1998), White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario (1998), Grace & The Great Gecko Art Store, North Bay, (1996), White Water Gallery, North Bay (1996), Brazil Coffeehouse, North Bay (1996), and The Muse, North Bay (1995).

She received an Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance Grant in 1995, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

(The biographical information featured here was written in consultation with the artist in 2006.)

Interview:

Liz Lott became interested in environmental activism when she learned of poor test results for acidity in the lake where she regularly camped with her family. She and a friend spray painted t-shirts that said "My lake is dead". She wore hers to school and recalls, "I remember people asking me, 'why is your lake dead?' and then I'd go on this spiel...I was educating people...it sparked conversation."

Another significant high school experience was being approached in grade 12 to do a co-op placement at what is now the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, even though Liz wasn't enrolled in the co-op program. "That affirmed for me that I wanted to be an artist," says Liz. In this placement, she began teaching art to children, something she has continued to do ever since.

When she graduated, she worked as an au pair in Switzerland for a year. She comments, "In Switzerland, every one separates their garbage, like, 12 times...there was an incredible recycling program...when I came back to Canada I was a raging recycler." She also became vegetarian while living in Switzerland, following the profound experience of helping a goat give birth on a farm south of Zurich.

A subsequent foreign experience with Canada World Youth in Indonesia was also an important experience for Liz. Seeing magic and animism "opened me up to different ways of thinking-[the] close connection to spirit and earth [represented] a whole different world". When she returned to Canada, she traveled to British Columbia and through the United States, with the West Coast being a destination for "the lushness of the forests." She feels that trees are important not just for their environmental benefits, but also for their effect on the human spirit.

Back in northern Ontario, she continued her art practice and received positive feedback for her landscapes, but she always felt she could do more. In the Camera Frontera festival in North Bay, which began in 2005, she developed a series of works that gave voice to her activist inclinations. By printing photographs of local scenes onto canvas using the giclée process, she provided a frame of reference for viewers. She then projected hypothetical futures onto these scenes, using paint to either show environmental destruction, or its opposite-with trees filling what are now parking lots and streets. While painting these scenes outside (her preferred way of painting, thanks to Lawrence Nickle, who introduced her to plein air painting), she found that people walking by had amazingly positive feedback. She says, "I totally believe positive things can happen and we can shift things for the better" and hopes her artwork will serve as a catalyst for change.

(By Heather Saunders, based on an interview in July, 2006).

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Liz Lott
2006

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Liz Lott, Red Pines on Main Street, oil and giclée on canvas
2005

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Liz Lott, Floorplan
1998
White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario, Canada