Biography of Peter Liversidge
The career of one of Britain's most idiosyncratic artists, Peter Liversidge, is remarkable in its distinctiveness and in his innovative use of art proposals. Born in 1973, Liversidge has for the past decade started almost all of his conceptual artwork by creating proposals with the help of his trusty old manual typewriter. Occasionally adding drawings and notes by hand, they range from the ludicrously ambitious to the cryptically hypothetical. The artist's dynamic practice ensures that he is always actively engaged with the space for which he creates proposals.
Peter Liversidge is fascinated by the idea of creativity and celebrates work that confronts or steps outside of our preconceived ideas of what art should be. Many of the objects that Liversidge creates are mundane in nature and repurposed for the artist's use. He then expects the audience to complete his work by bringing their unique interpretations to it. This is evident too in Liversidge's use of the postal service to send his artwork, allowing the labels and alterations to contribute to the piece as a whole.
A prolific collaborator with music groups, Peter Liversidge has created projections for Balmorhea and Wires Under Tension and has produced an album cover for the band Low entitled Ones and Sixes. Liversidge often publishes his proposals as artist books. He has worked with a wide range of institutions including the Tate Gallery in 2008 and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in 2010. He also developed projects for Art Basel Miami in 2009. In 2013 the artist was commissioned by the Edinburgh Art Festival to make his Flags for Edinburgh which invited anyone in the city with a flagpole to fly a flag with the word "HELLO" on it.
