Since 2019, Watts has been working with her Dad, as the signature, Watts & Dad. Generally, in Dad and daughter teams, the Dad is usually passing on his knowledge and business to the daughter, whereas with Watts & Dad, the daughter is facilitating the father to become a contemporary artist in his eighth decade.
The Geometric Rude Helmets are to be worn in cafe
In their art making she acts as both a collaborator with, and facilitator of, his ideas. He is a Carpenter and Joiner by trade and has spent a lifetime in the building trade. He has always been interested in inventing and playing games and so when his wife, who was disabled and whom he cared for for forty years, began living in a nursing home, he became freed up to begin exploring his ideas with his daughter.
In 2019, Watts & Dad, funded by ACE hired a studio for fifteen weeks and began to make. Dad insisted on a 7 am start time (builder’s times) in the studio, and they began making a marble run and then restarted with a crazy golf course.
At the end of their three months in the studio, March 2020, the first ‘lock down’ of Covid 19 happened and so they moved the golf art to Dad’s front room in his house, where they continued to build with Watts visiting in the holidays. This second part of the production was commissioned by John Hansard Gallery - Southampton and by May 2021 they had completed a five hole crazy golf course with sound triggers using recordings of Dad and Mum bantering from when Dad had cared for Mum. Mum’s phrases such as “That’s not very good, is it” became triggered sounds when the ball was hit down the wrong hole.
The Geometric Rude Helmets are to be worn in cafes. Watts & Dad won the Clare Thornton Memorial Artist’s Residency at Looe Street (2022) and the photograph above shows one of their cardboard experiments.
Exhibitions, Films Performances & Books & Symposiums
2022 - Fabrica Gallery - Brighton - (solo as Watts & Dad exhibition) - My Crazy Family Golf and Dad Cares.
2022 - Salts Mill, Saltaire Trail -Saltaire - (solo as Watts & Dad exhibition) - My Crazy Family Golf and Dad Cares.
2021 - Winners (as Watts & Dad) of the Clare Thornton Memorial Residency, Looe Street, Plymouth.
2020 - John Hansard Gallery, JHG - Southampton - (solo as Watts & Dad exhibition) commissioned the final production of the five hole golf course, My Crazy Family Golf and the video, Dad Cares. Our exhibition was shown at JHG.
2019 - ACE, R & D funding, Grants for the Arts to make art with my Dad as Watts & Dad. We hired Blast Theory Studios and made the beginnings of a crazy golf course, which we then continued in Dad’s lounge of his house.
2019 - UHArts, School of Creative Arts – (solo performance) Decorating…
2018 - John Hansard Gallery – Southampton – (solo exhibition) Not a Decorator….
2018 - (author /editor of a monograph) Arts Council of England funded – Published artist’s book – 429 Significant Moments: Documenting an Artist’s Research and Processes
2017 - SIA gallery – Sheffield – (solo exhibition) - Skittish – Snowgum – Badluck
2017 - Castlefield Gallery – Manchester – (solo exhibition) - Arts Council of England tour – Not a Decorator…
2016 - Hogan, S, Baker, C., Cornish, S., McCloskey, P. Watts, L, (chapter in a book) (2014) Birth Shock: Exploring Pregnancy, Birth and the Transition to Motherhood Using Participatory Arts in Burton, N. (ed.) Birth and its Meaning: Representations of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Parenting. Canada: Demeter Press.
2015 - Spacex gallery – Exeter – (solo exhibition) - Skittish
2015 - Vane Gallery – Newcastle – (solo exhibition) - Arts Council of England tour – Skittish – Snowgum – Badluck
2015 - The Tetley – Leeds – (solo exhibition) - Skittish – Snowgum – Badluck
2015 - The Tetley – Leeds – (director) Puff of Smoke
2010 - Edinburgh University – Edinburgh – PhD
2008 - Site Gallery – Sheffield – (solo performance) - Book of G
2006 - Interspace, Sofia, Bulgaria – (a video in collaboration with Alice Maude-Roxby sound by Ron Wright) – Bad Luck
2004 – 2010 - Nottingham Trent University and University of Edinburgh – PhD in Fine Art with scholarship
2004 - National Review of Live Art – Glasgow – (solo performance commission) – Oh au Naturel
2004 - Arts Council of England funded – Published artist’s book - (author) – 32 Significant Moments: an artist’s practice as research
Books →
Performance →
Reviews
“emotional and bodily self-image are worked to form rituals of self-confidence. ”
“(she) continues to explore issues of perception and reality, as well as, aspects of individual physicality under pressure”
“an artist with the courage to present simple yet powerful images and whose every gesture carries conviction. ”
"Lisa Watts is an artist who is totally committed to her practice and actively tests and pushes its boundaries; not afraid to question, to edit and to refine as she thinks necessary. Her ability to reflect on both her own practice, and that of artists in general has contributed to the publications that she has produced, and those in themselves make a significant contribution to how ‘practice and research’ is perceived and regarded. Lisa is an important artist, who asks important questions, her work makes us all think and question - and our lives are made all the richer by it" (Carter, Ros, Curator/ Head of Exhibitions, John Hansard Gallery - Southampton, 2019).