Breath, Plastic, and Myth: Liz Larner’s Sculptural Journey from California to Global Art Conversations

From Breath to Bacteria: The Fragile Art of Life

Liz Larner’s early work, notably her 1988 piece Every Artist Gave a Breath, exemplifies her fascination with ephemeral and living materials. In this project, she invited artists worldwide to breathe over petri dishes, cultivating bacteria that evolved into unpredictable forms and colors. Some dishes transformed into delicate, colorful wafers, while others darkened into murky, unsettling hues. This living artwork captured the invisible and often overlooked presence of human breath, turning it into a tangible, evolving sculpture.

For communities like those in Bonny Island, where environmental health is a pressing concern due to industrial activities, Larner’s approach underscores the intimate connection between human presence and ecological systems. The work invites reflection on how unseen elements—whether bacteria or pollution—shape our shared environments.

Plastic’s Hidden Forms: Art as Environmental Witness

Larner’s engagement with single-use plastics emerged from a personal encounter with the global recycling crisis. When China ceased accepting American plastic waste, she began collecting discarded plastics, amassing so much that she suspended it from her studio ceiling. This accumulation became raw material for sculptures that evoke the overwhelming presence of plastic pollution in our oceans and landscapes.

Her assemblage Meerschaum Drift (2020-21) hauntingly reflects the plastic-choked waters threatening marine life worldwide. Larner points out that the plastic objects around us are designed to be discarded and often go unnoticed, their forms invisible despite their ubiquity. This insight resonates with Bonny Island residents who witness firsthand the environmental impact of industrial waste and the challenges of sustainable waste management.

By transforming plastic debris into art, Larner encourages communities to reconsider their relationship with consumption and waste, fostering awareness and inspiring action toward environmental stewardship.

Rooted in Place: A California Childhood Shapes Artistic Vision

Born into a farming family in California in 1960, Larner’s early life was marked by environmental hazards, including exposure to DDT, a toxic insecticide sprayed near her home. This personal history informs her ecological consciousness and artistic exploration of material toxicity and transformation.

Her connection to place and environment parallels the experiences of many in the Niger Delta region, including Bonny Island, where industrial pollution has long affected local communities. Larner’s work serves as a reminder of the complex interplay between human activity, environmental health, and cultural identity.

Sculpting Space and Myth: Asteroids and the Lilith Narrative

In recent years, Larner has drawn inspiration from space exploration and ancient mythology. Her ceramic sculptures of asteroids, such as Nyx (2022), translate NASA’s images into three-dimensional forms with intricate, glazed surfaces that captivate viewers. These works reflect contemporary anxieties about space commodification and environmental disaster, themes increasingly relevant as global attention turns to space industries.

Simultaneously, Larner’s exhibition title, A Hard Line to Bend, references the Burney Relief, a Babylonian terracotta plaque depicting Lilith—a mythological figure who famously rejected traditional roles. Lilith’s story of refusal and autonomy resonates as a powerful symbol of resistance and self-determination, themes that echo in feminist movements worldwide, including those in Nigeria.

Larner connects Lilith’s quiet power to figures like feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem and cultural icon Dolly Parton, highlighting the diverse ways women assert agency and challenge norms. For communities in Bonny Island, where women and youth are increasingly active in cultural and social initiatives, these narratives offer inspiration and affirmation.

Art in the Age of Digital Saturation: A Call for Presence

Reflecting on her formative years in Los Angeles’s vibrant 1980s art scene, Larner contrasts the tactile, communal art-making of that era with today’s digital saturation and social media’s pervasive influence. She chose not to join social media, emphasizing the value of direct experience, dialogue, and physical interaction with art.

This perspective encourages local artists and cultural practitioners in Bonny Island and the diaspora to cultivate spaces for embodied creativity and community engagement, resisting the flattening effects of online platforms. Larner’s work invites viewers to move around her sculptures, observe, think, and share interpretations—fostering a dynamic, shared experience.

Her approach underscores the importance of preserving cultural spaces where art can serve as a catalyst for conversation, reflection, and collective meaning-making.

What this means

Liz Larner’s artistic journey—from cultivating breath bacteria to sculpting asteroids and mythic figures—offers a rich tapestry of insights that resonate far beyond the art world. For residents of Bonny Island and the wider Rivers State community, her work serves as both a mirror and a beacon: reflecting environmental and social challenges while inspiring new ways of seeing and engaging with the world. In embracing materials that reveal hidden forms and narratives, Larner invites us all to pause, reflect, and imagine alternative futures where art, ecology, and culture intertwine meaningfully. Her sculptures remind us that creativity rooted in place and history can foster resilience and hope in times of uncertainty.