“The paintings rupture and burst, spilling out their ‘image virus’ ©, leaking and spreading across the canvas onto the walls.” Laird Galbraith My new paintings are the result of an on-going long-term project with visitors and guests to the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. I will be exhibiting the work and also painting in the Adelphi Hotel. Visitors can view and discuss the work with me, and perhaps contribute photo images to the project themselves. The ‘Memory Palace’ is for me both one’s own mind, rich with images of every kind, and the hotel itself, built as a palace for Liverpool's trans-Atlantic passengers (the tragic fate of that great Liner and her passengers merely adds an extra poignancy to the building’s history, and a reminder, if we need one, of our own mortality). Each guest carries their own memories and also adds to those of the hotel. The transience of hotel guests echoes our own ‘passing through’ life. Yet hotels can be places where we relax and explore who we are, our little adventures and petite morts, away from our home environment. After a period of re-evaluation and exploration, I feel I have been able to make a breakthrough - quite literally - in finding a uniquely personal means of presenting my ideas.These ‘de-structed’ paintings take my work in an exciting new direction. It is a peculiar paradox that as my work has become more collaborative, with people contributing photo images for me to use as source material, the finished paintings still seem to resonate with my own preoccupations. These paintings, based on the photographic autobiographies of others, feel very personal in spite of my attempts to make them autonomous objects - visceral evocative lumps of paint and canvas. I always want to create art with a pulse.
Laird Galbraith, August 2008 | 
