Elizabeth Lewis was a British artist working with a wide variety of metal objects. She mainly created relief sculptures, both as smaller wall hangings but also much larger constructions in corporate offices. Her corporate commissions include work for the offices of Rolls Royce in London and Paris, the Minigrip Corporation in New York, Apollo Leather Products Ltd, and Thomson Newspapers. She often incorporated industrial parts of the respective organisation in her artwork trying her best to capture something about the company. Her art can therefore rightly be described as 'industrial'. Apart from Industrial work she also created works for private residences which she refers to as Domestic Art.
There were a lot of brutalist artists that made metal wall hangings, examples include the American company 'Artisan House' that made art under the brand name 'Curtis Jere' or the sculptor Henrik Horst from Denmark. Elizabeth Lewis fits in that tradition but her work was different in the sense that she included resin as an additional material for her artwork. The resin was used to give an extra dimension to the artwork. It both helps to create a uniform and softer look to the picture and introduces subtle colours to her work.
Lewis held several solo exhibited throughout the UK and works by her were included in exhibitions in private galleries and at the Royal West of England Academy and Royal Ulster Academy. Apart from wall hangings she also creates mirrors, jewellery, sculptures and watercolours.
This item, that can best be described as a relief construction, is made of various metals and resin. It is a great example of her work. It is a relatively small picture and includes a variety of metal shapes. Most notable are the largest four curved shapes which are likely some industrial parts or waste products though not identified. The whole construction is set in a dark brown resin and framed in a simple, yet elegant, metal frame. The whole image has a gentle, almost sophisticated look, which is not necessarily what first comes to mind with brutalist art. The resin has a very glossy appearance and at first glance you might mistake it for a ceramic wall plaque. It has been applied quite carefully in various thicknesses and in places partly covers the metal. It creates an interesting pattern. It is difficult to photograph but in bright light the pattern is almost reminiscent of an old tortoiseshell box.
Whether this was made for a particular company or not is not known. Also it is not clear what exactly is portrayed here. I am quite happy for it to just be an abstract work but it is equally intriguing to consider what this depicts.
Overall this is a smart looking item that would fit very well in a sophisticated modernist interior. The item probably dates from the early 1970s, a period where interiors lost a lot of the bright colours of the 1960s.
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