Issue 10
Women in Art
By Sara Jane SlukePhotos By Morgan Slade
Liz McGrath
Liz McGrath has been hell on wheels since the moment she emerged from the womb. “I don’t know why, really, but I was a monster. I broke all the windows of our house with a hammer and tried to stab my mom; I got kicked out of every school I went to, starting in 4th grade; I started drinking and smoking and huffing paint and whatever else I could get my hands on at a very early age. I stole cars and broke into houses; I went to girls homes, juvenile hall, foster homes—I was a real mess.” And the girl hasn’t slowed down since. Fortunately for her liver and the safety of civilization, McGrath has channeled her heart, soul and venom into a mesmerizingly extensive body of work.
McGrath was raised in a strict Roman Catholic household, a stifling experience that was forever imprinted in her consciousness and influential on her creative outpouring. It was from this personal prison that she longed to escape, so she began to rebel and never quite stopped. Thankfully, McGrath was blessed with a creative streak and a healthy dose of natural ability. “I was always the artistic one in the group.”
As a teenager, McGrath airbrushed T-shirts in the Eagle Rock Mall, engraved glass at the Pasadena Plaza, and eventually landed art department jobs in the entertainment industry. These days, McGrath paints, sculpts and builds nightmarish dioramas full of creatures seemingly unearthed from some decrepit pet cemetery. The devil only knows what other diabolical recipes she has yet to concoct. If she were ever forced to choose just one medium within which to work forever, McGrath would stick to painting. “My work is really large, like 7’-8’ tall. I build all the boxes and such myself, and as I’m getting older, I’m finding I don’t have the strength to make these as easily anymore. I think in the next few years, I’m going to start to phase out the 3D art and get back into painting and drawing.”
She continues, “It doesn’t bother me too much, but I do get passed over for things sometimes because I am considered part of that ‘lowbrow’ crowd, whether you hang out with a crowd or not, if you are from Southern California showing in certain galleries, or with certain artists, or have art in certain magazines.”
After years of being steeped in the questionable juices of Los Angeles, McGrath dreams of living in New York or abroad. When asked what sort of affect living here has on her creativity, McGrath replied, “Before they cleaned up the city, there were a lot of limbless vagrants that would gather on my block. It was very depressing: zombie crack whores and truly insane people wandering around at all hours. When I look back at my work from a few years ago, I noticed that a lot of my characters were really sad with missing limbs and were covered in band-aids.”
McGrath recently had an exhibition at the Styrchnin Gallery in Berlin alongside Adele Mildred, and has shows booked through 2008. McGrath has a toy company, Toykiller, and a clothing line, Creep Clothing. She had a book published called Everything that Creeps, and has a children’s book on the way. McGrath is developing a doll with Necessary’s Toy Foundation, and a line of metal and porcelain figurines called Tiny Terrors with Silverstate Collectibles. As if she’s got time on her hands, McGrath and her husband, Morgan Slade, also have a band, Miss Derringer, and are planning their next tour. But her current dream project? “I guess the biggest thing I would like to do after getting those things done is a stop motion animation movie. But I’m not going to even think about that until 2009.”
Several lifetimes-worth of experience have been jammed into McGrath’s life so far. Chaotic adventures in and out of the art world have taught McGrath more than a few lessons. “I realized that an art career spans your whole lifetime. It’s as much about endurance as it is about talent. Art can be like slicing a part of your life off and putting it on a plate for everyone to stab at, but you have to get over it and just do it”.