who and what
Liz Young on Wikipedia
Dualistic in imagery, concept and process, my artwork investigates themes that evoke feelings of loss and an acknowledgement of the inevitability of nature, its beauty and decay. I tend to make drawings and sculptural objects within thematic bodies of work creating a personal context that is empathetic, dislocated and tender. Themes are awkward juxtapositions and visual conundrums about both nature and culture, private and public and identity and landscape. My objective is to reconstruct and imitate nature with a sophisticated naïveté, reflecting my concerns about the human body and the natural world. I use processes as varied as traditional art practices to handicraft techniques, always showing evidence of the human hand.
Images of the body and nature are depicted as lifeless and still, isolated from their source; dislocated, broken and compromised. They are presented as a contemporized version of the memento mori, nature morte. I am drawn to imagery relating to hunting and Americana, like hunting targets, mounted taxidermy animals, the flag, hand embroidered samplers, wood burning brands, and found objects often recycled, distressed and second-hand that show evidence of its history. These material artifacts often make reference to the West and the American milieu that celebrates the allure and demonstrates the isolation; obtained trophies embodying a sense of achievement that comes with that sense of pride. The fascination I have with taxidermy and the reproduction of nature reflects my curiosity with facsimile, replacement, and substitution of our natural environment.
Text and narratives are important in my work. I have a special interest in literature that references nature and identity as characters, and have quoted texts by Truman Capote, Sam Sheppard and Annie Prioulx. My recent drawings and textile work focus on the absence of the image of nature and the body. The images of a tree or a spine become the negative space surrounding by darkness. The specific images are missing and are now a hole and dislocated. The negative space is rendered in materials such as gunpowder, raw graphite and silver point leaving the text knocked out and white.
My early work was loaded with dark imagery of pain and suffering, the spectacle was harrowing and tormented, searching for the significance of being and the origin of consciousness, expressing the anguish I felt. I used materials that were almost always detritus, creating labor-intensive work that implied dualistic connections like life and death, and confinement and independence. These themes still exist in my work today.
Images of the body and nature are depicted as lifeless and still, isolated from their source; dislocated, broken and compromised. They are presented as a contemporized version of the memento mori, nature morte. I am drawn to imagery relating to hunting and Americana, like hunting targets, mounted taxidermy animals, the flag, hand embroidered samplers, wood burning brands, and found objects often recycled, distressed and second-hand that show evidence of its history. These material artifacts often make reference to the West and the American milieu that celebrates the allure and demonstrates the isolation; obtained trophies embodying a sense of achievement that comes with that sense of pride. The fascination I have with taxidermy and the reproduction of nature reflects my curiosity with facsimile, replacement, and substitution of our natural environment.
Text and narratives are important in my work. I have a special interest in literature that references nature and identity as characters, and have quoted texts by Truman Capote, Sam Sheppard and Annie Prioulx. My recent drawings and textile work focus on the absence of the image of nature and the body. The images of a tree or a spine become the negative space surrounding by darkness. The specific images are missing and are now a hole and dislocated. The negative space is rendered in materials such as gunpowder, raw graphite and silver point leaving the text knocked out and white.
My early work was loaded with dark imagery of pain and suffering, the spectacle was harrowing and tormented, searching for the significance of being and the origin of consciousness, expressing the anguish I felt. I used materials that were almost always detritus, creating labor-intensive work that implied dualistic connections like life and death, and confinement and independence. These themes still exist in my work today.
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