Caro Liddell is a printmaker of 35 years, based in New South Wales. Her works display the multiplicity of paper as a medium, where mark making is informed both by her own hand as well as by the unpredictable elements – yielding surprising and beautiful results.
Her current exhibition Road of Endurance is inspired by her own life’s winding journey, and by relinquishing control over her processes within her practice to the elements, the resulting body of work is wholly unique, and unrepeatable.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your practice.
This is a very hard question to answer. As an artist I wonder sometimes if it is more of a curse than a blessing. My brain never stops turning I am constantly looking searching and working. I find it impossible to relax and it drives my dogs and spouse crackers at times, but I would never have it any other way. The journeys art has taken me on and the revelations it has presented to me are extraordinary. In many ways I do wonder if my health difficulties are the universe slowing me down.
What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
The mediums I use are related to the subject matter, oil, bronze, paper or pigment. However paper is my passion! I have walked the streets of Barcelona (with broken ankle), Paris, London and China in search of the essence of the paper I require to work with. The endurance and versatility of papers is always an amazement to me. I don’t go without a day working the paper of my sketch book diaries.
Can you elaborate a little more on your making process — how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
My process is ever changing, but Road of Endurance uses 740gsm Arches paper, using its extreme characteristics to endure pressure and the different environmental elements. My method is working with tools, pastel and graphite on the paper then wet it over night and them place it on my surface of choice for how ever long it takes for rain and vehicles to mould the paper surface and the serendipity of nature.
How do you keep your creative juices flowing? How do you push past creative block?
Creative flow! I haven’t a clue! But I do constantly look to materials, tools, plants, animals, and words, then let an idea morph and develop. Photography is very important to me. The intensity of a looking down a macro lens, in awkward places takes me on never ending journeys of pure joy and amazement. Words! Those too! I look them up constantly in the small hours.
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
My working environment is where I am at the time. Road of Endurance was the Rainforest environment, weather, seasons and obsession with plants and animals. Just a table to bang on with tools and being outside is sufficient. No studio.
If you could go on an Artist’s Residency anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
I have been on some fantastic residencies and being out of ones own environment can be an enlivening process. I am my own Residency. I have so much to explore where I am, decades of exploration.
What’s next for you after your time at Brunswick Street Gallery? What upcoming projects are you working on now?
Next project hasn’t, altogether, arrived yet but I am working on a concertina booklet with print and intaglio words. Also my interest in paper is leading to exploring the making of alpaca scat/poo paper as I have a quantity of it. The pandemic has taken such a detrimental toll on the world my venture is to work where I am, I am blessed to be and to work on taking the Road of Endurance to another level.
Caro Liddell’s Road of Endurance is currently showing at Brunswick Street Gallery until 20 June.