Lamb was born in 1953 in Tisdale, Saskatchewan to entrepreneurial, creative parents. The prairie landscape and culture continue to inspire her image-making, and inform her thinking.
Lamb moved to Toronto at age 18 years. She attended University of Toronto, with additional art studies at Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario College of Art and Design, 1000 Islands School of the Arts, Haliburton School for the Arts, Ryerson, and additional courses with Lila Lewis Irving, Henry Vyfvinkel, Michael Janzen, and independent art studies with her mother, award winning artist Rhena Lamb.
Lamb’s watercolour painting ‘Fruits of Life’ won Best of Show at University of Toronto. Her paintings are held in collections in North and South America
Lamb traveled to 50+ countries in North, Central, and South America, Caribbean Islands, North and South Pacific Islands, Australia, Asia, Africa, and Europe. She hitchhiked across the South Pacific on various small sailboats, and then hitchhiked 10,000 kms. in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Hawaii. Her dramatic endeavours include touring Alberta with a travelling Theatre company, and starting Fresh Theatre Company from the ground up. She produced and directed ten new Canadian plays in Toronto, and acted in the TV series, ‘Divorce Court’.
Her publications have appeared in the Toronto Star newspaper, U of T Magazine. Lamb’s husband, Jorma Lindqvist, actor, calligrapher, and artist, inspires her everyday.
Lamb paints ambidextrously, with one brush in each hand at the same time.
“I paint on the right side of the form or shape with the right hand, and the left side of the form with the left hand. Then I work on one section starting a line with one colour in the left hand, and finishing the line with another colour using the right hand. I move about the painting with one hand following the other.
The energy of the subject, the concept, or the image slowly comes to me. I feel the energy building and it rushes over me, and I furiously paint to keep up. The energy pours out of me and through the brush onto the canvas. I act as the medium for the image. This experience transports me to another level, and I am barely conscious of painting. The colour, shape, form, and line, flow through me onto the paper. I am unaware of my earthly surrounds, and I become the medium for the colour, energy and the line.”
Lamb works in oil, acrylic, watercolour, ink, mixed media
Elizabeth Lamb lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, and is grateful for the love and support of her family and friends, the beauty, the bounty, the opportunity, and democracy.