Discover Livia Marin’s hypnotic works.

Afternoon tea with melting china.

“I mostly use themes such as serialisation, repetition and estrangement of what is familiar in my artwork. In this respect, I have a particular interest in the everyday life, specifically in the material objects that shape to it. What fascinates me about everyday objects are the traces of humanity that lie in them and that can be brought to the fore in art. These traces enclose both their construction or making processes and the daily use-relationship we establish with them.”

Biography

Livia Marin is a Chilean-born, London-based artist. In Santiago de Chile, she earned a BA in Fine Arts and a MA in Visual Arts, while in 2015 she completed her Ph.D. in Art in London, UK. She has exhibited her artworks in Chile and in international fairs.

During the 90s, Chile underwent through social and political change: from an extremely rigid dictatorship regime, Chile became a neo-liberal economically driven country. Livia Marin was extremely influenced by the chilean socio-political evolution in the first years of her artistic career.

The artist is well-known for her large-scale installations and for the use of mass-consumed everyday objects. The reason why she uses mass-produced objects for the installations is linked to her analysis of the contemporary global market. She wants to understand which is the everyday relationship people have with a product, in an era where standardisation dominates everything. As a result, her artworks reflect on the rules dictated by the contemporary marketplace and its influence over familiar objects.

Emblematic projects

Broken Things, 2009

This body of work, called Nomad Patterns, represents a true inquiry into the issues of brokenness and recuperation by using ceramic bowls, cups, and even teapots.

She is truly fascinated by the great deal of humanity captured in a common everyday object. In fact, when something is broken a person discovers herself in deciding what to do with it. This decision is linked with the attachment the person feels with the object. Indeed, the artist tries to recreate it by recomposing the object as an ambiguous figure.

They actually “appear as staged somehow indeterminately between something that is about to collapse or has just been restored; between things that have been invested with the attention of care but also have the appearance of a ruin.” — Livia Marin

Concerning the design, she drew inspiration from a pastiche of Chinese landscape decoration, created by an English craftsman in 1790 to imitate real Chinese patterns. The motif is called Willow.

Soft Toys, 2012

Soft Toys are pieces made of second-hand ‘cuddly toys’, which were covered with layers of plaster, gesso and gold leaf. Adding layers onto layers creates a process in which the object loses its figure and oscillates between the familiar and unfamiliar.

Fictions of a Use II, 2010

In Fictions of a Use II, the artist worked with around 2.000 chiseled lipsticks. She used a wooden base with an oval shape as a basis for her artwork.

Some Exhibitions

2016 Liquid art system at CONTEXT Art Miami 2016, Miami

2016 WHITE ROOM — Liquid art system at Art New York 2016, New York

2016 GALERÍA PATRICIA READY at Zsona MACO 2016, Ciudad de México

2015 WEIGHT FOR THE SHOWING, Maddox Arts, London