Liz Larner

Liz Larner (born 1960, Sacramento, California, United States) is an American installation artist and sculptor living and working in Los Angeles.

Larner was born in Sacramento, California in 1960. In 1985, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of Arts, Valencia, where she had studied with John Baldessari.

Larner's work is regarded to have much in common with the late 1960s and early 1970s sculptures of Eva Hesse and Jackie Winsor.

In her early work, Larner examined issues of transformation and decay in a series of petri dish cultures that she also photographed. Her subsequent installations and sculptures address the way an object defines the space it occupies and transforms the viewer's perception of that space. Damage Control (1987) is a two-foot-square block of hazardous substances. Its list of materials includes saltpeter (an ingredient in gunpowder), ammonium nitrate (used in the Oklahoma City bombing) and TNT itself.Used to Do the Job (1987) consists of two rough-hewn cubes stacked on top of each other; the bottom one is made of solid lead, the top one of almost solid wax and paraffin - suspended within are all the ingredients needed to make a time bomb.

For the green-and-purple 12-foot-diameter form 2001, named for the year it was made, Larner mingled a cube and a sphere so that the object appears to be in perpetual motion. Its surface, iridescent urethane paint, is similar to automotive finishes.

In 2013, the Nasher Sculpture Center revealed the plans for a newly commissioned sculpture by Larner for The University of Texas at Dallas. For her commission, Larner proposed X, a mirror-polished stainless steel sculpture to be placed in the courtyard of the new Edith O'Donnell Arts and Technology Building (ATEC).

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