Liz McGrath
Illustration & Design
A registered teacher with a Bachelor of Education (Art/Crafts) Liz has taught in Melbourne, London and Geelong.
A believer in positive community engagement, inclusion and access to the arts, Liz works across a number of teaching roles in a range of settings. She has also worked in school engagement roles for some of the City of Geelong's major art events. Since 2010 she has regularly designed and delivered art and craft workshops for children through the Geelong Performing Arts Centre including Poppykettle Festival, Sustainability Week, and activities for young theatre-goers.
Bluebird Foundation
Since June 2013 Liz has worked on some great projects through the Bluebird Foundation, a Geelong based not-for-profit organization dedicated to making quality arts programs accessible for all.
Each week she co-facilitates Meet, Move & Make, a structured music and art program for young parents and their pre-schoolers based at a family centre.
Drawn Together
The Drawn Together project is one of Bluebird Foundations programs. It began in 2015 when Liz worked with The Fort youth centre in Norlane to engage young people from Geelong’s Karen and Karenni communities. The project saw young people coming together at free weekly after school sessions to draw and create art which celebrated their personal and cultural identities. The evolving group have since worked on a number of unique and special projects and exhibitions.
In 2015, through funding from Geelong Connected Communities, Liz worked with a group of young people to create drawings used to illustrate an alphabet picture book for Karen and Karenni children arriving in Australia and learning English. Copies of the book were printed and distributed to local schools, libraries and community centres as a valuable ongoing literacy resource for children learning English.
In 2016 the young artists painted letters onto recycled vinyl pieces sewn as weather-proof flags, that could be assembled and re-assembled to spell out different messages.
In 2017 Liz guided the young artists to create large self-portraits, which were exhibited at The Courthouse Youth Arts gallery in Geelong to celebrate Refugee Week. The exhibition launch told the story of each artists' journey to Australia and celebrated their Karen and Karenni culture with music, food and video.
Use the following link to access a video explaining more about the Drawn Together program at the Fort:
In 2018-9 the project was funded to create artwork for Harmony Day 2019, which celebrates Australia's cultural diversity. Liz extended the project to North Geelong Secondary College running lunchtime workshops and working with VCAL students. The artworks created became an installation at the school, and part of an exhibition in Geelong. Artist Laura Alice combined student images to create Augmented art works that could be viewd as posters or postcards, or activated via smart phone technology to become animations.
Athena's Guild
In 2014 Liz was invited to be an artist mentor in the Athena’s Guild Project. Through the Bluebird Foundation she mentored a young artist with a disability to develop her artistic skills and to jointly prepare work for a group exhibition at Geelong's Karingallery in May 2014.
Barwon Valley School
Through the Bluebird Foundation Liz was installed as an artist in residence for one term in 2013 at Barwon Valley School, working with children who have very special intellectual, physical and sensory needs. Her initial project at BVS was Alphabet Art which saw her guide students to the create a set of unique letters which became a changeable word mural displayed at the school and spelling out the school values.
Since then, Liz has remained at BVS 1-2 days per week developing and delivering a responsive and flexible specialist art program which includes a wide range of sensory and other art projects. Over the years her students have produced some beautiful work including vibrant textiles pieces, murals and items for sale in markets. In 2016 Liz worked with staff and students on an Art for Wellbeing program, and in 2018 Liz coordinated a public exhibition of student artwork at the Eastern Hub, titled "Eclectic".
GenU
Since April 2014 Liz has also been employed to support adult artists with special needs through GenU (formerly Karingal) a community organisation in Geelong. One day each week Liz works in the James Street Gallery (formerly Karingallery), an access art studio at James Street in central Geelong which provides studio facilities for drawing, painting, screen-printing, fine art printing, ceramics, papier mache, bookwork and mail art.
In May 2019 Liz coodinated the gallery's first involvement in Geelong After Dark, and the illuminated artwork Draped was created as an installation in the gallery windows.
GenU also runs programs from the Eastern Hub Community Centre in East Geelong where Liz facilitates the Creative Book Arts program one day each week, an inclusive community art program focussed on creatively using text and illustration, storytelling and making publications.