Meet Liana Moran
In the final week of Structurally Sound exhibiting at Made in Stirling, we caught up with Liana Moran to talk through the exhibition, her progress as an artist, and her love for freestanding manmade structures (and car parks). Structurally Sound marked Liana’s first exhibition in Stirling but also saw her experimenting with works on a larger scale. This resulted in a body of work that Liana thinks is some of the best she’s produced recently, as it pushed her to work on a bigger scale and add more colour and texture into each piece.
During her fine arts degree, Liana focussed mostly on bright oil paints. Her earlier work used a lot of bright colours which she then drew on with graphite. One thing that has never changed is the use of layers, lines, rhythms, and perspectives. When she went into mixed media after screen printing classes, she realised how using different kinds of prints underneath could impact the final piece. She took this knowledge and continued playing with different mixed media layers to make up her pieces. This culminated in her current mixed media drawings, which are made up of newspapers, charcoal, pencil, and ink. For the works in Structurally Sound, she has incorporated a bit more colour, resulting in a great exploration in both style and scale.
Liana has always had an affinity with manmade structures, finding joy in creating lighthouses, bridges, stadiums, pylons, and car parks. To her, it is not necessarily the final building that is the most interesting, but rather its skeleton and structure. It is why, to her, car parks, stadiums, and half-finished buildings are some of her favourite subjects. To her those show the bones of a building, but they also show rhythm in lines that has translated into other work.
Structurally Sound was Liana’s first exhibition in Stirling, but it was not her first solo exhibition. She exhibited Lights Out in Edinburgh, an exhibition focused on lighthouses across Scotland. This exhibition came about when Liana realised how much people enjoyed her lighthouses. During covid, Liana got into the habit of cycling to lighthouses and sketching them. After seeing the response to them, she decided to create Lights Out, a show in which she presented Scottish lighthouses. One of her favourite pieces from that collection is the North Queensferry lighthouse, which also displays the Forth railway bridge in the background.
For both exhibitions, Liana had a similar approach. Wandering with a small sketchbook in hand, Liana explored the locations to find buildings and monuments that inspired her. For Structurally Sound she specifically tried to find more unique angles of Stirling. She took some time to sketch them from multiple sides and took images to reference later on. The small sketches were then taken to the studio, where she started drawing on a big scale, letting the piece become the size it is whilst drawing.
Once the basic composition was on the paper, Liana used mixed media to fill in the gaps, creating dimension through the use of newspaper, crosswords, pens, and ink. Liana likes to work quickly to keep the energy the same throughout. For Structurally Sound, Liana took around 5 weeks to create the 10 pieces on display.
Even though the exhibition is over, Liana is still not done with creating pieces inspired by Stirling. During the course of the exhibition, she’s been commissioned to draw Stirling Castle and Doune Castle. She has also been approached to work for the Stirling Highland Games, and her Stirling Bridge is going in the permanent collection of The Smith Art Gallery. Liana is predominantly based in Edinburgh, so she has been grateful to receive a larger audience through exhibiting and selling in Stirling. As a full time artist, it is impossible to be everywhere all the time, so having places like Made in Stirling and SDX sell work on her behalf is very valuable, as it allows her to focus on other things such as creating a larger body of work or prepping for exhibitions. It also helps her diversify her body of work and getting a better idea of what sells best in which space.
Liana wants to continue exploring the possibilities of her art on a larger scale and is thinking of returning to oil paints in some way. She has an exhibition coming up with Rosebank Distillery, where she will blend her style with the history of the distillery. Want to keep up with Liana? Follow her on Instagram @edinburghillustrations or find her in our summer and winter markets!
Images by Patrick Alexander
