Elizabeth Livingston

Gallery Affiliations: Alpha Gallery

Region: Northeast

Website: http://www.elizabethlivingston.com

City / State: Pelham , 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.