Performance of Identities: Art by Liza Montgomery
Hungry Ghost II, oil and mixed media on wood panel
Liza Montgomery is an artist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her current practice looks at representation in both art and life, and the performance of identities, particularly in feminine aesthetics.
Doppleganger, oil and mixed media on wood panel
Artifice gallery on Liza's website
On Liza’s website, www.lizamontgomery.com, current work is split into two galleries: rituals, and artifice. The rituals gallery is populated with images of women pulling strands of beads out of their mouths– strange references to consumerism and the pursuit of feminine beauty. It seems fitting, then, that most of Liza’s figures are also heavily made-up, with white painted faces, defined eyebrows and ruby-red lips.
The surfaces that Liza paints on are subject to analysis, as well as the face and the identity of the figure, and how those can be altered. The figures all seem to be in the midst of a theatrical performance, and Liza’s use of collaged pieces of found wallpaper adds to theme of covering up, and putting on a pretty face.
