Liquiforms
1 May – 7 June, 1997

Exhibition

The Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of “Liquid Reality,” works by 23-year old by British artist, Oliver Marsden. Marsden debuts in this solo exhibition after appearing at the Courtauld Institute of Art’s East Wing Exhibition that included Callum Innes, R.B Kitaj, and Julian Opie. Marsden recieves his M.F.A. from the Edinburgh College of Art this year and is the recipient of several scholarships and awards, including the Arthur Anderson Prize for Best Young Artist.
In this exhibit, entitled LIQUIFORM, Marsden stets out to create “virtual liquid sculptures.” Marsden’s work refers to liquid matter as a re-interpretation of Nelson Goodman’s theories of representation and perception, in which the ontology of visual language is explored.
His “sculptures,” LIQUIMORPHS and LIQUISCAPES, assert a “virtual” relationship to the viewer, a perspective in which spatial points offer a constellation of visual construction in flux. Fixed spatial points “floating” on the canvas appear and disappear before an acquiescent eye. Marsden regards the experience of looking at art, as well as the process of making art, as one in which matter is seen simultaneously as a primary state- solid, liquid, and gas.
Oliver Marsden was included in a group exhibition last December at Spencer Brownstone gallery in “inside, Outside, Above, Below.” According to Marsden, “the experience gained from seeing the actual liquiforms is quite different from seeing only the visual image…..Though the surfaces appear to be 3-dimensional, they are flat and smooth.