Isabelle Zhizhi Southwood

Everything is on the cusp. Between life and death, heaven and earth, ground and sky, safety and danger, physical and immaterial. I am interested in means of controlling the body through medicine, alternative therapies, exercises, torture devices and occult traditions. Drawing with mustard, pepper and tape onto the wall, a still of Homer Simpson, his warm drool revealing his vitality; hammering glowing molten metal rods into lines of ancient instruments of torture - a Scavenger's Daughter, then punctured through and hung with silhouettes of terracotta acrobats; digitally augmenting the sound of my mother's pacemaker controlled heart and shaking ancient walls and disrupting the internal rhythms of contemporary guts with the Dubstep sub bass vibrations, further heightened by the use of equipment donated by friends and family, the sound passing back and forth between mechanical and human. Making the work seems to be a form of autonomous, cryptic, ceremonial catharsis. Although endeavoring to heal the wounds of others, each action is ultimately egocentric.
My practice is adaptable, using drawing, objects, sound, painting and video. How do society and the individual cope with the frailty and finiteness of a person and their body, the cu...

The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2009-13)
Fine Art BA, 1st Class
Awarded Grocers' Company Golden Jubilee Scholarship
Clare Winsten Memorial Award

Chelsea College of Art & Design, UAL (2008-09)
Foundation Diploma, Distinction

The British School in the Netherlands (2000-08)
3 As at A2 (Maths, Physics, Art & Design: Top 5 Award)
10A*s, 1A at GCSE

2013 BLOOMBERG NEW CONTEMPORARIES Spike Island / ICA
2013 MERTON ARTS TRAIL Wimbledon
2013 SCULPTURE SEASON Grant Museum of Zoology
2013 SLADE SCHOOL OF FINE ART DEGREE SHOW University College London
2013 THE GROCERS' CHARITY EXHIBITION Grocers' Hall
2013 BRONZE LAB University College London Art Museum
2012 AND YOU WHAT DO YOU WORSHIP? Crypt Gallery
2011 IN ALL WAYS OR PLACES: OLLERPLEX UN-PLEX Oriel Sycharth Gallery
2011 MERTON ARTS TRAIL Wimbledon
2009 FOUNDATION DIPLOMA SUMMER SHOW Chelsea College of Art & Design, UAL
2007 SHOW YOUR HOPE 80 QUESTIONS International