Liv Macartney-Read
BA (Hons) Fine Art
The Static Blues (2023)
Rooms of the home constantly ageing, changing and adapting as a metaphor for time. Ideas of escaping time is a prevalent subject in my practice, I am curious about time in the domestic setting which I explore through technology, sound and light whilst keeping domestic tropes running throughout. I am interested in the ways in which the domestic can represent a passing life and how I can slow the pace.
We are living in a speed orientated society with pressures of productivity at the forefront of our brains, technology has had an exponential impact on this. This is a concept that my practice follows closely, I display this through defamiliarising domestic tropes such as rooms of the home and taking them to a different context. Taking elements of meditation and slowness into an intimate, solitary space allows me to connect the viewer and the works in a hyper personal way.
I favour my installation works to be seen without external technology such as phones yet I acknowledge this giving up a huge role that technology can play in being seen as an artist today. I allow my works to be seen in a solitary manner due to the audience positioning, and this can create an extremely connective interaction with the space. The use of the corner has been a recurring element of my works over the years and I believe will continue to be so in the upcoming ones. Corners that prize you away from reality to embody a spatial, temporal instant whereby you can be present, be slow and not feel the pressures of productivity. I feel my role has adapted especially over the last year from an artist to a curator in a sense, looking more deeply into audience impact.
