42 Surface Design Journal42

ABOVE: MARGIE LIVINGSTONWoven Paint, White Acrylic paint,wood, tacks, hand weaving, 25" x 30" x 2", 2015.

RIGHT: MARGIE LIVINGSTON Falling Grid with UnderpaintingAcrylic paint and string, 60" x 55.5" x 9", 2014. Private collection.

All images shown courtesy of the artist, Greg Kucera Gallery, andLuis De Jesus Los Angeles. All photos by Richard Nicol.

M a r g i e L i v i n g s t o nA Textile Point of View

b y E l i z a b e t h A . B r o w n

Characterized by intrinsic rather than appliedcolor and three-dimensional presence in a wide range of forms, Margie Livingston’s workemploys numerous techniques familiar to textiles—stitching, weaving, draping, folding,quilting. In these fiber origins, she pays homageto female forebears: her grandmother, who wovetextiles on her own loom; her mother, who madeher own clothes; her aunt, an avid quilter. Yet Livingston began as a painter and came to prominence with gestural canvases evoking Abstract Expressionists like Joan Mitchell.

Woven Paint, White is a horizontal rectan-gle of basket weave, like a chair seat created out of tape, strapping, or recycled fabric scraps. FallingGrid with Underpainting resembles an exploded diagram of how a weaving is constructed. Both are pure white, wall-hung objects, from a distance

resembling Robert Ryman paintings as much astextile patterns. In contrast, 90 Color Tests providesan overload of riotous patterns in saturated hueslaid out like a quilt. From the dark brown swirl atupper left to the pale yellows and pinks at thelower right corner, each individual square presentsa complex psychedelic pattern of complimentaryand contrasting colors, like those luscious swatchesin upholstery showrooms. To experience theseworks is to revel in the sensory and technical rich-ness of visual invention known as fiber-based art.

These works often occupy the space ourbodies inhabit, associating them with the realm ofsculpture or installation. But each of these objectsis constructed out of paint itself—in this case, pigment suspended in an acrylic medium—thesubstance that, for generations, has stood in as thedominant metonymy for visual art. Rather than

43Spring2016

MARGIE LIVINGSTON 90 Color Tests Acrylic paint and grommets, 90 squares, 8" x 8"each, 78" x 86" installed, 2012.

disperse this liquid upon a linen support, Liv-ingston transforms it into a solid by dripping orpouring acrylic onto slick surfaces. When dry, sheobtains “skins,” sheets of paint that she can cut,stretch, weave, drape, pile, roll, or stitch into a variety of forms.

Working in this unusual way, she devel-ops works of art that cross categories and con-found expectations, weaving a network ofassociations and responses in her audience. PQFM,for example, resembles a densely pieced andstitched garment. Because it reads so insistently oftextile production, it summons harsh judge-ments—how bad a seamstress must one be toend up with so many overlaps and irregularities?The acronym stands for “Pucker Quilt for Mary,”paying homage to the influential and neglected

feminist forebear Mary Shelley, along with hermost famous progeny. This sewn paint object is in-deed the Frankenstein monster of painting as wellas textiles.

Dense with meaning, contradictory andcomplex in technique and theory, Livingston’s re-cent works provoke a succession of viewer experi-ences. One responds to the overall composition,developing misleading assumptions about howthe works were made. As one moves closer, per-haps reading a label for medium—paint, huh?How is that possible?—the next thought involvesdifficulty and virtuosity. The dizzying range ofscale, orientation, rhythm, and mood all exagger-ate formal considerations. Ultimately, Livingston ismaking meaning with her manipulations of acrylicpaint.

44 Surface Design Journal

MARGIE LIVINGSTON PQFM Acrylic paint, linen string, polyester cord, coated mesh, plastic rings, stitching, 40" x 50" x 2", 2015.

MARGIE LIVINGSTON Crumpled Painting on a Shelf Acrylic paint on wooden shelf, 10" x 24" x 11", 2014.

Spring2016 45

Multiple viewings are required to seethese objects in their fullness. As the types of ab-stracted form that garner layers of meaning, theyincorporate references to the history of art andpopular culture, mimicking images of female bodies and other familiar forms. From intimate to monumental, these works question the longstoried histories of painting and textiles as culturalphenomena, but also evoke them as milestones inthe artist’s own history and formation.

Folded Painting with Blue, Orange, and Pinkbegins with a marbled paint skin in vibrant colors.Livingston has said she selected the palette basedon an Emilio Pucci dress she had coveted as achild. Golden Artist Colors, the maker of her pre-ferred medium, produced custom colors of acrylicpaint to match her fabric swatches precisely. Thecomposition of swirly forms evokes the “eyecandy” of Abstract Expressionism. To neutralizethat high art authority, the rectangle is folded several times like a tablecloth—the way hermother taught her to store fabrics. Thus, she establishes a model for exploiting every nuance ofthese hybrid forms: high art and popular culturereferences, frequently deriving from her formativeyears; processes or products that denote homeymemories; aspects of painting and textiles trans-formed into sculpture.

Mash-ups of form, such as CrumpledPainting on a Shelf, similarly offer multiple contra-dictory contexts. Do you see the shelf first, signify-ing the domestic realm, the way women arrangedecorative objects in a home? Do you read theshape as a reclining nude, perhaps a reference to abronze by Matisse? Or do you focus on the cumu-lative material, the loops and strips of paint-fabricrecalling Richard Serra’s slagged lead? The answerreveals something of the viewer’s psyche as muchas Livingston’s intentions.

Body of Work is a massive object. A messof unused stretched canvases (actually handmadeout of paint) heaped together in an open cratereads vaguely like a torture device. The silhouetteevokes a mountain, inspired by German Romanticartist Caspar David Friedrich’s 1823 painting Sea ofIce. “Body of work” is a term used for an artist’s pro-duction. Here, this heap could denote the remainsof a composition—formerly cherished, now stock-piled—symbolizing Livingston’s rejection of directpainting in oil on canvas. At the same time, thetitle signals monumentality, its ability to displaceand occupy space, to hold itself upright like ahuman body.

Big Black Grommet Drawing comprises 30irregular straight-edge forms. Each shape is indi-vidually cut out of black fabric (rather than paint),

MARGIE LIVINGSTON Folded Painting with Blue, Orange, and Pink Folded acrylic paint on Alupanel on backing frame, 6" x 12" x 12", 2014.

46 Surface Design Journal

and hangs from grommets at its top corners sothat the rest of the piece falls free. When a long tailextends from the primary form, its end is pulledaround to loop up to another grommet. The over-all effect resembles syncopated abstract designs,such as the moderne styles of 1950s interior deco-ration and printed fabric. Each component seemssimple; however, regular rectangles turn out tohave angled sides or trailing ends; most terminatein a triangular form at one corner or another. Although the array composes beautifully—filling ahorizontal ovoid, like early plus-minus paintings byMondrian—the erratic outlines of each element

reveal its origin in found scraps.Livingston recounts finding them in a

dumpster. The by-product of some unexplainedmanufacturing process, they spoke to her in someopen-ended way. Determining that these numer-ous fragments could together articulate therhythms of a painting represented a major break-through for the artist. Liberated by the summationof Body of Work, she could now embrace the process of “getting lost,” seeking and embracingrandom actions, testing how they might promptaesthetic invention. Big Black is the first work torely on what she refers to as “readymade” foundobjects, and the first time she incorporates actualtextiles as a major component in her work.

Fiber traditions enable these meaningfulchimeras, but they also ground Livingston’s experimentation in deeply personal significance.Symbols of once discredited “women’s work”—weaving, quilting, or piecing together compo-nents—pay homage to Livingston’s ancestorswhile enabling her to engage more broadly withmodernist painting. Merging the visual arts in thisway allows her to simultaneously consume art historical traditions and keep them alive.

Margie Livingston: www.margie.netUpcoming solo shows can be seen at:Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, CA (through May 28, 2016)www.luisdejesus.comGreg Kucera Gallery, Seattle (July 7–August 20, 2016).www.gregkucera.com

—Dr. Elizabeth A. Brown is an independent scholar, educator, and consultant based in Seattle, WA. Her work focuses on experimental contemporary art,photographic history, and museum practice.MARGIE LIVINGSTON Body of Work Acrylic paint, wood, metal,

58.25" x 81.5" x 12", 2014.

MARGIE LIVINGSTONBig Black Grommet Drawing

Polyester/nylon fabric, grommets, tacks,62" x 93" x 5", 2015.