Exhibition: 'Vertigo'

Liam Nunan’s exhibition ‘Vertigo’ draws on the story of Icarus and his fall as a symbol of human ambition, risk and self-destruction. This series of paintings reflects on our current moment of uncertainty as we enter a new era shaped by artificial intelligence, global warfare and growing anxiety about the future.

The figures that populate Liam’s paintings embody a sense of dissociation from these anxieties, and explore our increasingly complex relationships with consciousness and the body.

They appear either falling or floating, evoking the experience of hypnagogia and hypnic jerks - the brief moments between waking and sleep when the body can feel separate from the mind. The body may suddenly jolt, or feel as though it is falling or moving, while the mind occupies an uncertain space between reality and dream.

Rendered against grand open vistas or brooding cloudscapes, the figures inhabit this liminal space, suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness, control and surrender. As Liam asks, “where do we go when the mind begins to separate from the body? What happens when our sense of reality becomes uncertain?”