© Laura Green
The Royal Albert Dock complex in Liverpool comprises dock buildings and warehouses, once at the heart of the mercantile shipping industry, but now home to many restaurants, bars, and cultural venues, most famously, Tate Liverpool. Laura Green's isolated structure seems not to focus on the area's present incarnation, so much as the legacy of its industrial past, although her intentions remain deliberately and teasingly ambiguous.
The artist has observed of her practice: 'I am interested in curious objects and spaces that surprise me in my passage through the world. I am drawn to these objects initially because something unquantifiable about their form moves and captivates me. They are often man-made objects or structures. They seem to take themselves seriously. I see an earnest dignity in the objects I select in which I find a dialogue between humour and pathos. The process of making a painting involves making drawings through which I explore and take ownership of the image, internalising and gradually unravelling it. The objects depicted appear alien to their surroundings and possess a feeling of 'otherworldliness'. The real is explored and manipulated to create paintings seeming to be caught in a 'third space' - a world that is not quite 'the real' and not quite 'the imaginary''.
