River beneath the River – Liv Worsnop
In River beneath the River Liv Worsnop reimagines, recycles and reaps landscape imagery. By pushing these natural scenes to the abstract edges of recognition she seeks insight into idealised worlds and the sublime. Billions of years old dormant spaces, full of potential, are activated and renewed through her processes.
Through utilising different tones – soft and sharp – Worsnop achieves a fuller picture of her concepts. Found photos are combined and distorted with aggressive action in the works on paper; elsewhere scenes are carefully hand-stitched together in her cozy fabric works. Worsnop cuts through her paper works with sharp lines that lead a viewer through and provide multiple horizons. These lines also serve to condense and complicate the space. The surreality of the fabric works takes on a more humble feel with rounded planet shapes and unrefined edges of fabric mountains and hanging clouds. What results are contrasted wild paradises, where space is collided with land, and soft paradises where textures are cushioned and serene.
Yet tying these together is the cohesiveness of the artist’s practice and personality. Worsnop takes her palette from the colours that surround her; the re-used fabric illustrates her sustainable ethos of renovating and reusing material. She sees the potential in natural spaces and extrapolates that through her work, showing us an otherworldliness hidden underneath the surface of our own earth.
Liv Worsnop graduated from the University of Canterbury, School of Fine Arts in 2012 with a major in sculpture. In 2013 she formed Plant Gang, an ever-changing gang producing catalogues of wild plants, public gardens and sculptural installations in the often brutal post-quake landscape. This work considered environmental impacts of human action and sought to reconcile the disconnection we have with our natural world.
These themes are carried through into her studio practice. Found materials are manipulated and transformed with the hope of bringing joy, creation, serenity, abundance, peace and connection into our lives. Through seeking a deeper understanding of our relationship with the universe she delves into the occult, yoga and meditation, scientific understanding of our planet, plant power and self-healing.
