'Do what you're into and see what happens' - Crichton

Contemplating the expanse of galvanised steel floating an inch off the ground before me, I’m drifting off. Tombstones in the twilight come to mind, as does my dad, who died a couple of Christmases ago. Visually, there’s little to occupy your gaze beyond the steel illuminated by an off-centred, low-hanging striplight and a drawn theatre curtain, which hangs at a right angle, it’s hemline shuffled up where it drapes onto the metallic surface. Ambient noise of birdsong and muffled traffic seep into the room from outside. Standing alone, in the half-light, totally at peace, it’s easy to become reflective.
Artist Liam Crichton emerges into the gloom of the Townhall Theatre. He’s switched on the oppressive soundtrack to his installation ‘Untitled (Black on Grey)’, obliterating the noises of daily Cavan life from outside. Dressed in black, and standing against freshly blackened walls, arms tightly folded he gives a staccato nod, when I tell him of my reaction to his artwork. “Right, okay,” he says, a playful smile on his lips.
From Galloway in rural southwest Scotland, he says that minus the lakes, “it’s not too dissimilar to Cavan county”. He can imagine how his abstract work would be received at home and less than an hour ahead of the launch in Cavan Town, he’s apprehensive about how “really dark minimalism”, as he describes it, will be received here.
“Yeah, that was on my mind, people coming in and like: ‘It’s just eight steel plates on a floor with a theatre curtain and a striplight’.
“Yeah that’s it, but I think you’ve got to do what you’re into and see what happens. I’m more than happy for people to have their opinion, whatever that might be. I’m really cool with that, for people to take what they want from it, or take nothing, or take what you took from it.”
Previous exhibitions in the theatre part of the venue, have been limited in the main to photo displays - so he’s hopeful the novelty will stand in its favour.
“Coming into see this, will be really unexpected - and I quite like that,” he says.
A major component of the surprise will be the otherworldly soundtrack, a seemingly relentless drone. Liam actually recorded ambient sounds at a series of bridges near Butlersbridge and then distorted them.
“You take what might not even be two seconds and you expand it - I think that’s 29 minutes,” he says of the grumbling noise suffocating the room. “So you stretch that time out. Those changes in frequencies are happening naturally within that stretching - it’s elongating what’s compressed into those two seconds.”

The hollow
‘Untitled (Black on Grey)’ is Liam’s response to a Mark Rothko painting of the same name, and also the venue’s use as a theatre. The Rothko has two large, rectangular planes of colour, one grey and one black, separated by a thin horizon line.
Rothko wanted the viewer to stand precisely 18 inches from the painting, surrendering their field of vision entirely to the artwork. Even though the focal point of Liam’s installation is the stage curtain, steel and light, he’s eager for the viewer to experience the entirety of the main theatre hall.
“You will get differences in tone from the sound from walking around,” he explains. “It’s a bit bassier around the back where the curtain is than down there. I’m really into using the whole space rather than one fixed point.”
“This space has been left, consciously empty” he says looking towards the area where seating typically would be during a stage-drama. “I played around with lights in this space, but they just felt separate, and add-ons.
“What was needed was having the light on the piece - literally on the piece. It goes back to the actual [Rothko] painting, in terms of almost a white horizon line. It completes it, having it all together.”
He explains Rothko’s attraction for him, and how it fits into this work: “It’s my continued interest in abstraction, and he’s one of the figureheads of large-scale abstraction. And it’s really minimal. And looking at the piece,” he says of his own work, “it’s almost a dark landscape.
“Taking it back to my interest in the built environment - site specific to Cavan County, An Cabhán means ‘the hollow’ so that was a major influence in the work.”
He continues: “The reflection off the galvanised steel would be a connection to the water, and Cavan’s famous for all the lakes. So there’s little threads like that - I’m interested in making little dots and people can draw lines in between and connect them.”

Beauty
The text that accompanies the work explains that ‘Black on Grey’ was one of Rothko’s last paintings before his suicide in February 1970. The Celt wonders if providing the viewers of Liam’s work that detail informs or distorts their reaction to his piece.
“I’m not sure you can separate those two,” he says. “I would probably say informs, if you look at the work he’s done.”
Is it a full stop?
“Maybe.”
I suspect it was this line that carried me off on my deathly day-dreams, and maybe stopped me from drawing the lines between Liam’s carefully plotted dots. However Liam seems quite happy with my skewed response.
“I’m happy that it evoked so much, I’m happy that it actually made you feel something. “[With installations] I’m interested in making experiences rather than objects to look at. Some of the things I’m doing kind of feels like it’s more of an event.”
Do you find optimism in your work?
“Yeah I would, there’s beauty. I’m interested in nice materials. Galvanised steel is beautiful to me. There’s a beauty to fluorescent strip lights, so yeah there’s optimism in the beauty.
“Ideas of the sublime come out of beauty. I want art to evoke that fearfulness and grandeur - it’s that dichotomy between the two - that back and forth.”
Untitled has been in the offing for a few years now, and Liam thanked Cavan Townhall’s Sally O’Dowd, Siobhan Harten and Joe Keenan, and Shane Carroll, who he says has been “absolutely unbelievable” and Cavan Arts Office for their support.
Accepting that it’s inevitable that some will be sceptical of the work, has Liam any advice to viewers?
“Spend a bit of time with it. Rather than coming in, two seconds - ‘It’s really shit’ - spend some time with it. Absorb it.”

Admission to ‘Untitled’ (Black on Grey)’ is free, and the installation continues at Cavan Townhall until Saturday, June 25 Opening hours: 11am-5pm, Wednesday to Saturday.