There You Go, a Landscape! #2

There You Go, a Landscape! (2024) is a cheeky poke at the earnestness of the contemporary trend in digital art wherein artists attempt to mimic old-fashioned landscape painting, down to simulations of brushstrokes and physical materials. The apparent obsession in NFT art at large with replicating classic techniques, such as watercolour or oil painting, is gently and humorously critiqued in this piece.

Despite possibly familiar components, There You Go, a Landscape! remains delightfully ambiguous. The line dividing the image from left to right might be a horizon, or it might not. The shifting, changing figures in front might be waves, or they might be ferns, or creatures, or something entirely different. Visible above these figures are cloud-like forms and cartoon lightning strikes: an element of playfulness, paradoxical in its directness amidst what are otherwise inscrutable gestures toward the activity of referential art-making itself.

Clear in this ambiguity is LIA’s playful refusal to enable the viewer’s consumption of a pre-packaged interpretation, the likes of which are otherwise rife in a hyper-capitalist NFT art market primarily focussed on rapid speculative sales. This refusal sets the artist apart, offering the viewer instead the space and the opportunity to think about LIA's work, and that of her peers, in a different light.