2013. Modern Love
At first, Liddington’s new works from the Rothko Series read as Constructivist homage; drawings composed of geometric forms. Yet upon closer inspection, one can decipher an overwhelming tension as the crowded forms push against one another. Emphasis is placed on the gestural elements present in what are believed to be an initially static, structured composition. In keeping with his interest in movement, line and repeated forms, Liddington stresses the trace of his hand on a surface through laboured drawings founded in abstract expressionism, specifically the surfaces of works by Mark Rothko.
Liddington’s protest banner A love worth fighting over (a monument to those that preceded me) appropriates elements that can be traced back to the Russian Constructivist period when artists working in dance, theatre, painting and textile collaborated on projects that supported the common goal of developing a labour aesthetic. Steel rods affixed at intervals to a canvas secure this ten-foot high sculptural installation. The banner itself is an expansive 100-foot-long stretch of fragmented canvas recomposed and folded in upon itself. To create this large work, Liddington dyed the material using graphite powder as pigment. The fabric was then cut into different geometric forms and re-assembled into an operatic abstraction. The smaller sections feature repeating forms signifying ongoing narrative moments presenting a quarrel unfolding between three lovers, a car and two ballerinas.