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I make these works with large oil pigment sticks. I stumbled on this way of working because I
didn’t want to work with solvents anymore and I wanted to still use oil-based colours on
unstretched canvas as I have done for years. This is by way of saying that I have continued to
ask myself whether these are paintings or drawings and have decided that it is nice to say that
they are neither, not drawings, and not paintings, but something in between, like a bridge, from
one to the other and vice versa; although I also have the luxury of calling them either. And, as I
work, they are both, or neither, or either. I apply the principles of both kinds of mark making,
the best of both worlds is what I like to think.

I have discovered that the opportunity to push around pigment has opened a new vista for me,
the discovery of making the image subservient to the push and pull of my pigment, and also the
necessity to make the image gain traction by making the pigment subservient to the
clarification of the image. It’s like a friendly war on “space” that excites my sensibilities as an
artist.

It wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say also that I am driven by my concerns about our world, and
not just my fascination with flat space and how to apply colour to it, as my exhibition title
suggests. I am propelled to conceptualize, in image making, notions about movement,
companionship, conflict, absurdity, catastrophe, and tenderness, all of which you see here, I
hope. I see the world and yet I still push around paint. To me this is both complex and facile,
but I have always been given to paradoxes, so I don’t mind this problem at all.

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For more about Liane and her art please visit her website: www.lianeodzesilver.art