Liz Collins

Liz Collins is well-known for pushing the boundaries of art and design in innovative and experimental work in fabric, yarn, and other materials and techniques associated with textile media. Although Collins embraces a language of abstraction, bold colors, patterns, and symbols allude to queer and feminist references, sourcing further inspiration from interpersonal and environmental forces such as electricity, volatility, connectivity, and energy exchange. Whether in the form of textile, painting, drawing, or installation, Collins frequently explores the dichotomy of structure and entropy — qualities inherent to textile that speak to the fissures present in broader architectural, political, and social structures. 

Collins’s current and forthcoming exhibitions include the 60^th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, curated by Lynne Cooke, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. In 2025, Collins will have a mid-career retrospective curated by Kate Irvin at the RISD Museum in Providence, RI, with an accompanying monograph.

Collins has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; Touchstones Rochdale, Rochdale, UK, among others. She has been featured in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the New Museum, New York, NY; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, among others. In 2020, the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery released Liz Collins — Energy Field, the artist’s first major publication.

Presented in partnership with Design Core Detroit. This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.

Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Radio.