Elizabeth Livingston
Gallery Affiliations: Alpha Gallery
Region: Northeast
Website: http://www.elizabethlivingston.com
City / State: Brooklyn , NY
I primarily paint lone women in domestic environments, and in
more recent work I’m pulling back from the figure to focus on
exterior views of homes at night. In these paintings, the figure
is no longer visible, but a human presence is clearly felt through
dimly lit windows. To give the image a charge of disturbance, the
viewpoint is always that of an outsider looking in, throwing the
viewer into the position of voyeur. I am interested in exploring how
isolated and fragile we are despite the ways we buffer ourselves
from the outside world—with soft quilts and richly patterned
wallpaper or by leaving on a light at night while we sleep. These
scenes are also ambiguous—are they warm and inviting, or is
something a little off, creepy even? A country home at dusk with
the porch light on reads both as a safe house and as defenseless
outpost against the dark woods surrounding it. The small,
protected worlds we create for ourselves are revealed as fragile,
their inhabitants terribly alone.

