Elizabeth Waggett Atelier
Loire Valley, France
A residency in the Loire Valley offers a distinct context for Waggett’s practice, where the slower rhythms of rural France open space for deeper material and conceptual investigation. The shift from the scale and pace of her American studio to the contemplative stillness of this historic landscape creates conditions for close looking, patient experimentation, and sustained reflection.
The village’s layered histories, visible in its architecture, craftsmanship, and enduring relationship with time become integral to the work’s evolution. Within this environment, Waggett explores how memory is embedded in surface and how light itself can function as both medium and subject.
This residency has been especially generative for the bee works, which distil labour, fragility, and transformation into intimate forms. Many of the antique frames that encase these paintings are sourced locally, grounding the pieces within the material histories of place.
Far from being a withdrawal, the Loire studio extends the space of the practice, a site where cross-cultural influences intersect and the work’s ongoing engagement with value, memory, and transformation deepens.
“Working in a 17th-century atelier in the Loire Valley shifted the approach to painting. The slower rhythm and weight of history in the space encouraged a more deliberate pace, allowing light, surface, and time to guide the process. Away from the scale and urgency of the American studio, familiar materials revealed new possibilities, and the work evolved with greater sensitivity and intention.”
