Pictorial Constructs
New work by Simon Liddiment

6 February - 3 April 2010

This is the first of two consecutive solo exhibitions that demonstrate distinctly different approaches to the conventions of the landscape.

Liddiment’s ideas driven work emerges from both the hands-on manipulation of materials and our preconceptions, and frequently uses cliché as its ‘raw’ material. This body of new work, Pictorial Constructs, follows this rationale to the letter, and is concerned with the physical and spatial exploration of a single plane.

Typically ‘weathered’, the genesis of each piece is a single plywood sheet; in response to which, Liddiment’s method is exclusively one of subtraction. If previously painted, he may alter the patina of the found surface by the wholesale removal of a layer of paint, but the dominant action is one of repetitive woodcutting. Sawn incrementally, in ever-decreasing widths, until he meets a pre-determined ‘horizon’, the graduated strips are sequentially re-united to form a solid wall based object with implied perspective.

Each composition is uniquely rendered, and under such concerted attention, the ply veneer progressively delaminates towards the sheet’s centre. Subtly splintered bands diminish into dense corrosion and flatter sky, so that one might perceive an autumnal stubble field with pixelated noise at the point where land-meets-horizon-meets-sky. Elsewhere more stark connotations are offered through the use of material with less evident history.

The matter-of-fact treatment of the wood effectively parries the illusion throughout, yet our ‘willingness’ to read the resultant ‘landscapes’ as complex spatial propositions refuses to be undermined, even by the known simplicity of the ruled graphic device the work employs.

Simon Liddiment graduated from Goldsmiths’ College in 1985 and his work was recently included in ZOO 2009, The Sculpture Show V22 presents, London, SALE The Royal Standard, Liverpool, and Animated at Wysing Arts, Cambridge. In late 2010 he will be participating in EAST goes East, an EASTinternational project with exhibitions at Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow and Trafó Gallery, Budapest. This is his first solo exhibition in Suffolk.

Click below to listen to an audio blog about this exhibition:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/97352-guestroom-s-shelf-visits-town-hall-galleries-ipswich