Rideal's commission Light Curtain/Drop Sari for the exhibition Cotton: Global Threads, at The Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester University (2012) was to animate the Victorian architecture by night and produce a parallel film installation to be viewed by day within the galleries. Research was funded by a British Academy Grant, enabling her to film the cotton industry in India. Connections beyond the gallery occur through the projected film and LED lighting, reviews, public participation and data inclusion in the Open University Open Art Archive further embrace a broad audience and ensure the longevity of the project.

The connected research themes of drapery and portraiture have been important elements since the late 90s. The curtain often seen in the background of a portrait was referenced in her paper Drapery and Pattern (National Gallery conference; Drapery in Visual Culture: contexts, clothing, corporealities) and published in The Journal of Cloth and Culture, (Berg, Oxford & New York, 2003)

Rideal also curates exhibitions, The Drapery Painter: Van Aken and other unsung heroes (1985) prefigured much of her work with flowing cloth, including Kerfuffle - a vast hoarding of red drapery (24 x 16 metres) that covered BBC Broadcasting House for seven months during its restoration in 2004.

The University of Massachusetts held a retrospective of her work in 2002, this showcased her groundbreaking interactive photobooth work; Identity, lyrical drapery pieces, monotype prints and bronze sculpture. Permanent and temporary public installations followed such as Glass Wall and Light Column, Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre (2001-5). Fall, River, Snow, Compton Verney (2006). Cloth Fair (2007) at Bart's, Hawthorn Hall of Mirrors for the Churchill Hospital, Oxford (2009) and The Green, Green Glass of Home, V&A (2009).

Rideal curated the exhibition, Mirror/Mirror: Self-Portraits by Women Artists at the National Portrait Gallery, 2001, the catalogue was co-authored with Professor Whitney Chadwick and Frances Borzello (and co-published by Watson-Guptill, NY). She chaired and organised the related international conference also giving a paper: Identity. Insights - Self-portraits (2005), was the first book published that concentrated solely on the National Portrait Gallery Collection of self-portraits.

Rideal's work is held in museums and collections worldwide including, Tate,V&A, The British Museum, Arts Council England, Government Art Collection, UK. The Yale Center for British Art, and The George Eastman Kodak Museum for Film & Photography, USA.  La Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, The Vancouver Art Gallery and The Museet for Fotokunst, Denmark.

http://www.lizrideal.com

http://www.npg.org.uk/research/staff-research-profiles/liz-rideal.php