Sculptor Liz Larner explores breath, bacteria, and plastic in UK debut show

Sculptor Liz Larner has built a career from unexpected materials, including human hair, false eyelashes, leather, and surgical gauze. For her first major UK exhibition, "A Hard Line to Bend" at Camden Arts Centre in London, she is transforming single-use plastic into pieces that combine seductiveness and menace.

Larner recalled her 1988 work "Every Artist Gave a Breath," which invited artists worldwide to breathe on petri dishes, creating art from bacterial growth. Exhibited in 2022, the dishes evolved unpredictably—some forming "beautiful, dried wafers in colour" while others became "murky and a little scary." The artist has said she began collecting plastic for her studio after China stopped accepting American recycled waste, accumulating so much material she had to hang it from her ceiling.