Liminal

Sam Walker’s 2020 body of work is expressive and elusive in nature, with the potential to simultaneously appear familiar and illusory. As the show title suggests, her work refers to a liminal space, occupying an in-between position: a place more familiar to the subconscious mind. The term liminal, coming from Latin, translates to ‘threshold’. In its literal sense, a threshold is a doorway or gateway between two places. 

The artist’s dreams inform the work and provide material to create paintings about sensation, an essence of subjective experience. Walker utilises painting as a way to clarify dream images, and while dreams are an integral foundation on which the paintings are made, they do not wholly dictate the final work. In the same way, we as humans have little control over our dreams and accessed memories. Subject to misinterpretation and the flaws of memory, dreams can be both an escape and a reflection of our current selves. Walker embraces the fluid processes of art-making where compositions form themselves and intuition is relied on more so than logic. Alluding to familiar spaces but remaining obscured, the work recalls the nature of memory; some things remain imprinted in the mind and other details are forgotten. 

The paintings exist in a transitional space where few described forms indicate permanence. When there is the suggestion of a tree or built structure there is a sensitivity to distinguish these forms as physically solid or more solid than other descriptions of colour and form. Many of the rendered forms that appear indicate this idea of transition. The roads, wharves, caravans and doorframes all evoke a sense of liminality; a sensory threshold. The rendered door frame in Gaudy Tooth subtly bends in a potential state of collapse or formation. This blurring of ground and figure allows room for the viewer to contemplate and explore each work without attempting to pin down what is definite in the composition. We know we are looking at a description of an image that was never based on reality and has since shifted into something different again and so we have more freedom to respond emotionally or spiritually. Walker invites the viewer, in the act of looking, to also temporarily escape their own reality and give attention to personal imagined realities or memories.

The paintings exist in a transitional space where few described forms indicate permanence.

Dreams can be inconsistent, sometimes easily forgotten and other times so vivid and visceral that we mistake them for reality. This fluidity and temporality are also communicated in Walker’s work. For most of us, dreams are a safe place, separate from the conscious mind. While we do not have say over what appears in our dreams, we do have relief from our tendencies to analyse our experience of the external world. Real-life occurrences tend to find a way into our dreams, but we are free from context, consequences and truths: this concept of escape is evident in the work. There are few depicted landmarks identifiable to the viewer and so there is the freedom to read the scenes as otherworldly or coming from an internal place, subjective to each viewer.

This 2020 series of work is executed in oils in a subdued palette of blues, greens, browns, greys, warm pinks and reds. The vibrant pinks, warm greens and rich blues assert a more ambiguous than solemn overall tone. The rendered pink curtain appearing in Akin to a Pintuck and Liminal I (The Funeral) makes reference to the familiar motif of draping reaching back to antiquity. The description of a curtain in art functions in two contradictory ways, sometimes simultaneously. In theatre, the curtain acts as a way of revealing something, implying discovery. By contrast, it may also function as a covering that conceals an object. On first thought, concealment seems to apply to Walker's pink curtain, but perhaps it also demonstrates how these works reveal something to us. An elusive experience we would usually have to be asleep to delight in feels within grasp when viewing these works. In Akin to a Pintuck, the curtain that hangs in the centre hovers in the described interior. It is unclear just how much weight the curtain has and if it is suspended by something with equal physical weight. A slight gap towards the bottom of the curtain sensuously teases the viewer to imagine what sits behind it in darkness; a theatrical gesture of invitation. This suggests that there is something here to be discovered and adds to the allure of the work. 

‘Liminal’ consists of paintings differing in scale, unified by subject. Soft brushwork, scratches and layers that peek through combine to form a contemplative tone: the blurred quality of the painting alludes to the fogginess of memory; the scratches loosely follow the described painted forms but still look incomplete and meditative. The more we access a memory, the more chance it has to change and become convoluted. Physical scratches present in some of the perspex and smaller works read as a form of revisiting a memory or dream. In the process of seeking clarity, the original sensation remains elusive and this attempt for clarity only obscures it more.

The more we access a memory, the more chance it has to change and become convoluted.

The intimate nature of the small paintings is utterly absorbing. The scale and soft push and pull of colour encourage the viewer to investigate close up, however, the closer one gets the more the imagery falls apart. Subsequently, the expressive descriptions of colour, light and shadow depicting the initial picture that we were wanting to better understand become something more abstract. Walker foils the viewers' attempt to read the works, alluding to the disorientation of waking from a dream and attempting to recall the details. In the larger works, which synthesise multiple scenes, the brushwork is more energetic and less restricted by the edges of the support. Manifestations of form and colour allude to both unruly natural landscape and built space, implying human presence without inciting narrative.  

A conscious decision has been made to use the physical space provided by the larger scale to synthesise imagery. Compositionally dense at times, the large works suggest conjunction and draw attention to thresholds. There are areas where Walker has wiped back into the paint to reveal a wash of colour, gently balancing the more fleshed out areas where paint is built up. The seamless assimilation of multiple images allows room for more than one interpretation and the skilful rendering quietly blurs the distinction between reality and fantasy. At times it is easy to glide through the work accepting its orchestrated quality and at other times we might stumble over the gentle shifts between described spaces. The latter, inducing a sense of disorientation, recalls the dream state. Dream can operate as an intertwining of recent past, current thoughts and potential futures. The ‘Liminal’ works reflect this amalgamation of time. The paintings mimic the nature of how dreams play out for the sleeper; illogical, fluid and constantly subject to jarring and sudden changes or disintegration. The works made on perspex offer another dimension to the series. They are a more literal reflection of disjunctive images manifesting to make a single work. Consisting of multiple layers of perspex they operate as drawings in preparation for the larger works. 

The paintings mimic the nature of how dreams play out for the sleeper; illogical, fluid and constantly subject to jarring and sudden changes or disintegration.

Through the use of intuitive compositions, the tension in the ambiguity of space and the softened execution the work has the opportunity to morph and gain new meaning in the present. Walker allows room for the original dream imagery to remain elusive during the process of making. Her acknowledgement of the unreliable nature of memory reflects qualities inherently human.