ELIZABETH GILL LUI                             

Brief Narrative Bio

Elizabeth Gill Lui, born 1951, is a fine art photographer, author, and educator. Her work has been widely exhibited and published. With a degree in comparative religion from Colorado College, she pursued Graduate work in American Indian Studies at the University of Denver and studied architectural photography at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in a program headed by Ezra Stoller. She has been a visiting artist, lecturer and juror at the schools of architecture at Chinese University in Hong Kong, the University of Colorado at Denver, SCIARC in Los Angeles, and at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, and Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire.

Her work in fine art photography has been recognized with grants from the Ford Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts which supported the publication of her book, Closed Mondays (Nazraeli Press, 1999) a photographic interpretation of XXth century art museums as architectural icons and cultural symbols. In 2004 she published, Building Diplomacy, The Architecture of American Embassies (Cornell University Press), a photographic monograph documenting American Embassies shot in over fifty countries worldwide.

Beyond her extensive interests in architecture her notable conceptual work in photographic collage investigates the bridge between human consciousness, spirituality and scientific theory in physics and fractal geometry. Within the architectural and design community Lui has also collaborated with a variety of clients, creating architectural site-specific photographic glass projects, most recently a lazer-etched balustrade mural at the Museum Residences of the new Denver Art Museum complex, designed by Daniel Libeskind. A book on this collection and residence was the artist’s most recent publication, entitled Vision & Realization/Where Art & Architecture Converge, and is a photographic tribute to the placement of a post-WWII art collection in an intentionally designed architectural space.

In 2005/2006 Lui was the recipient of a Rockefeller Brother’s Fund Asian Cultural Council Fellowship supporting her as an artist in residence and visiting scholar at Chinese University’s School of Architecture (CUHK), Hong Kong, allowing her to expand her body of work on Chinese vernacular architecture in rural areas of southeastern China. Begun in 1995 this body of work brought the artist to CUHK to accompany students on trips to mainland China to record the traditional environments in a fast changing cultural landscape. The publication of this collection of photographs, entitled Open Hearts Open Doors, Reflections on China’s Past & Future, is accompanied by text that raises the issues of cultural preservation’s collision with the forces of rapid development in China. The book includes commentary by a prestigious group of international experts on issues of China and heritage preservation, including an epilogue by I.M. Pei, and was released in November 2008 by Cornell University Press.

The artist resides in Los Angeles and is the founder of Four Stops Press, a studio that produces limited editions books and documentary films.