Peter Liversidge’s work explores his twin obsessions: the myth of the American West and the glamour and desirability of luxury goods. His investigations across these themes take in painting, sculpture, installations and public projects. Uniting these numerous and diverse approaches is the artist’s distinctive ‘hand-made’ aesthetic.
This Blackpool showing of ‘What You’d Expect’ brings together works produced over the past six years, together with new works commissioned especially for the Grundy including re-created neon signs made out of Blackpool rock and a gin multiple produced during the opening of the exhibition.
Liversidge transforms the Grundy into a panorama from the North Montana Plains – a place he has never been. The artist’s ‘Boulders, Rocks and Stones’ series, an on going work consisting of fragile caricatures assembled from packing materials and tape, is accompanied by fencing installed to restrict and guide visitor movement around the gallery space, and paintings depicting herds of roaming buffalo and buzzards. Together they capture a fantasy image of the American West; a sublime wilderness untouched by mankind – an image much stronger in our imaginations than the one we would find in reality.
‘What You’d Expect’ includes work from Liversidge’s series of paintings recreating advertising logos of famous multinational companies and the luxury goods they produce. His clumsy yet sincere painting style removes their desirability and the slickness of their advertising campaigns, thus exposing their ordinariness and the absurdity of the promises they claim possession will guarantee.
The exhibition also includes Liversidge’s recent paintings of Olympic logos from the past four decades. In the paintings, the Olympics, which epitomise physical perfection and achievement, becomes a symbol of our aspiration to achieve the impossible.
This is a touring project initiated by Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and supported by Arts Council England.
A publication accompanies the exhibition and can be purchased through Cornerhouse Publications here.