Liam Crockard

January 20 - February 19 2023


_{Documentation courtesy of Alison Postma}

I never throw anything out. It is probably as much a consideration of thriftiness as it is sentimentality. Beyond lens-based work, my education in visual art began with collage - the world of punk flyers and fast, cheap art. Being able to intercede in the world of images and bric-a-brac - to guide discarded materials to my own purposes - suits me fine. It extends your studio to the street, to old bookshops, to yard sales and garbage bins. Composition and accumulation become deeply related subjects. I have been in the same studio for 8 or 9 years now. It is an old building with bowing pillars and no square angles. My studio mate has been there for decades, and over this time the 3 surrounding units have been occupied by piano tuners, balloon vendors, amateur DJs, friends and fellow artists. Having this space has created the opportunity, or the problem, that generous space and a piecemeal sensibility affords you.

During the installation of At The Chair Factory, Ian and I made some benches with Callum’s help. We brought a bunch of material from my studio to work with, and Callum brought some materials from his. All of this carries a life that extends far beyond what I can give it for any specific object.  This idea of functional objects made from discarded materials has been with me for a long time, and is born of a love for the intersection of pragmatism and creativity. I once told a teacher these forms were Bastard Platonics, and my studio mate once told me they have the feeling of a warm seat, which I love. I apply this idea to my studio practice every time I am there with the aim of making mostly chairs. I tend to call this work All Thumbs, and the offcuts from these pieces just continue to circulate into more piles which find their way into later works, and so on.

Knowing At The Chair Factory would be a pretty comprehensive and direct show, I thought it would be nice to propose the bar - a place of social gathering and exchange - to be a kind of reliquary for discarded material from the exhibition itself, and exhibitions from the past. There are some materials here from my second solo show ever, shared with Callum at O’Born Contemporary. There are also some pieces that my studiomate has been donating to the pile with the possibility of their having a second life as a chair, long after she used them. There are a few here from my dad too, he keeps an eye out for interesting shapes and offcuts from his work as a carpenter.

To me, this work serves as a holdover for whatever comes next on the plumb’s bar, and creates a nice opportunity to reflect on the past history of this material and my relationship with it. The puzzle of fitting it onto the bar is the same puzzle I solve when I am making a chair.  When the show comes down, the scraps on the bar will too, and they will go back into the pile, ready to become something else.
-Liam Crockard