Feed the 5000 Biennial opening night Independent District

	Cabin Pressure The Cabin Club Liverpool Biennial 2002

	Nicki McCubbing Novas Warehouse Liverpool Biennial 2004

	Jane Hughes Myrtle Group Liverpool Biennial 2004

Lesley Halliwell

Independent District

Greenland Street

Red Circle, 2054 mins

The nocturnal meanderings of the North West of England exasperate and dumbfound cook kids and sleaze monkeys alike. Doodling within the lines, Lesley Halliwell resurrects 1970s children’s favourite the spirograph. The toy allows Halliwell to create dynamic monochromatic feats with rigid masochistic parameters; dazzling ripostes to senseless homework given by a lascivious art teacher.

The critical mass of the colour field and time taken to complete a drawing is dictated by the amount of ink in her biro, while form is predominately the outcome of whatever spirograph she uses. Superficially, the drawings are much in the spirit of self-perpetuating postmodern process painting, yet they lack the slickness normally associated with such work. The paper tears, haemorrhaging ink that imbues the drawings with a ragged, grungy facture. They resemble psychedelic tie dies, opening up an apocalyptic reading of postmodern painting raised in popular and counter culture, in historical accident rather than the linearity of dreary (anti)formalism.

Extract from exhibition essay by curator Dr Neil Mulholland