Tim Liddy

Tim Liddy

Tim
Liddy

b. 1963      STUDIO IN ST. LOUIS, MO

Midwest Region of USA
Tim Liddy
Tim Liddy’s painted constructions so closely resemble their board game inspirations that many viewers walk right past, thinking they must be found objects. Liddy relishes the confusion. The works are actually elaborately enameled copper sculptures, each seemingly printed word and every abraded strip of masking tape made by the artist.
 
Once you’ve discovered the truth, you are caught up in the astonishing detail and verisimilitude, and you’re drawn in to investigate more closely. Within the recognizable format of a mid-twentieth-century game box are surprising elements that are often at odds with the traditional object. Liddy inserts wry commentary on mid-century social mores into this comfortably recognizable context. The fact that the boxes seem to be held together tenuously by tape suggests the rapidly eroding conventions of an earlier era.

The earliest games they’ve found were Mesopotamian games that were versions of Snakes and Ladders. Kids don’t play board games anymore, there’s not that social component. We’re losing this whole idea of what play was.

Tim Liddy